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LIBRARY

UNIVERSITY OF

NORTH CAROLINA

C-U

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2011 with funding from

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hil

http://www.archive.org/details/menwhofoundameriOhutc

THE MEN Who Found AMERICA

" Columbus was dressed in shining steel, with a beautiful red cloak, and he
carried the red and yellow flag of Spain."

The
MEN Who Found AMERICA

Frederick Winthrop Hutchinson

Illustrations in Color by

E. Roscoe Shrader

AND

Herbert Moore

"Decorations by

Edwin J. Prittie

PHILADELPHIA

Edward Stern & Co., Inc.

1909

Published, September, 1909

Press of
Edward Stern & Co., Inc.

CONTENTS

A Preface to
Chapter I.
Chapter II.
Chapter III.

Chapter IV.
Chapter V.
Chapter VI.

Chapter VII.
Chapter VIII.
Chapter IX.

Chapter X.
Chapter XI.
Chapter XII.

Parents.

Page

The Alan Who Found America 13

The White Tyrant of Darien 26

The Beautiful City of the Floating

Islands 37

The Swineherd Who Wanted a Castle. 48

The Noble Who Became a Slave 64

How De Soto Came to the Father of

Waters 77

The Boy Who Loved the Sea 90

The Little Red Princess of the Forest. 104

The Englishman Who Sailed for the

Dutch 116

The Father of New France 127

The Friends of the Indians 141

What Came of It All 155

List of COLOR ILLUSTRATIONS

Opposite
Page

" Columbus was dressed in shining steel, with a beau-
tiful red cloak, and he carried the red-and-yellow
flag of Spain." — Frontispiece.

" The kind King Montezuma wanted peace, and said that
he would give the Spaniards more gold if they
would only go back to their own country " 40

" If you will let me go free, Pizarro, I will fill up this

room with gold, and it will all be yours " 56

" It was Ferdinand de Soto who first found this great

river, who first came to the Father of Waters"... 88

" Walter sprang forward and spread his handsome cloak

on the muddy spot " 96

" Henry Hudson got many furs from the Indians and

made them all his friends " 120

" Champlain came back to the St. Lawrence River and

began to build a little city called Quebec " 132

"The Indians loved the brave Father Marquette, and

called him their friend " 144

HOW quickly the years pass ! But yesterday they were
babies; now he is a great boy, clamoring for trousers
with vast, mysterious pockets; and she, dear little girl, is a
mother, caressing her dolls with an infinity of maternal graces.

Could they but stay young! Were there but a fountain,
like the one in these stories, to keep them forever safe in a
mother's arms. It is sad to think of their ever leaving Baby-
land.

There is no country like unto this beautiful bourn of our
children. Here are the dim, magic forests, the enchanted
castles, the deep, hidden caves, the secret tree-hollows, where
dwell sparrows and fairies and lost little children. In this
land the princess is ever young and ever beautiful; the bold
Prince Charming slays always the wicked, watchful dragon;
the fierce Ogre, with his one malevolent eye forever eats the
tender children at his ravenous evening meal. The land is
always full, yet always filling; the sun is forever shining, and
flowers spring up under the patter of little feet. Here bad is
bad, and good is good, and always the good comes true. For
is there not a fairy godmother to save the child from all the
childish evil in the world?

What a land of adventure it is! What daring deeds! What
heroic exploits! The little white crib, into which we tuck him
so tenderly — why, that is no crib at all! It is a great ship, with
flapping sails unfurled, creaking under stress of storm and sea,
sailing oceans unknown to lands of which we have never heard.
It is also a locomotive, a dizzy air-ship, an automobile, and, in

turn, a fort, a palace, a forest and a wicked robber's cave.
Resolutely the little captain, aeronaut, king, robber and police-
man marches through all this brave realm of limitless adventure.

Only too soon the child must leave this warm, fair land, and,
losing his baby's heritage, enter upon the schoolboy's estate.
The wicked giants, the fairy princesses, the wonderful, magic
animals who talk and think, vanish forever before the spelling-
book and arithmetic. A little learning is a dangerous thing.

Soon the little pilgrim must make his exploration of life and
knowledge. He, too, "must find America." Still, let us not
tear him from his own charmed domains, nor blow our icy
breath upon the warm creatures of his quickening imagination.
Let us rather gently bring our world to him, so that, as his eye-
lids open after his deep child's sleep, he may see this new coun-
try in his lap, as on the dawn of the Christmas morn he finds
the gracious gifts of Santa Claus upon the laden, glittering tree.

Into the wild, romantic life of the nursery I venture to bring
these twelve tales of twelve great men and brave. They are
strange stories, and should be welcomed as strangers. And they
are true — as true as Cinderella, as true as Sinbad, as true as all
the golden dreams of childhood.

And it is no wonder; for these stories of exploration are first
cousins to those your children already know. Aladdin's lamp
was not more magically pregnant than the Devil's courage of
the Spaniards in the fairyland of El Dorado; Dick Whittington
himself was not more marvelously transformed than the swine-
herd who came to rule a new-found nation ; and bad Bluebeard,
or even the gaunt wolf, who ate Red Riding Hood's grand-
mother, was not so fantastically melodramatic as the wicked,
wicked man who hid in a barrel.

And so I send these stories to the little children in the hope
that they may pass from the true tales of fairies to these other

true tales without shock or rude awakening. May the old,
beautiful visions linger, and at last fade but gently into the
wildly unreal truth of the actual world! May the two, the
tale of the nursery and the tale of the great dominion beyond
the nursery, live together in friendship and amity, so that, when
at last the little one comes to lose his fund of baby lore, it will
pass from him as gently as the fleeing consciousness leaves the
drowsy child !

To the little children of America, and to the children who
have borne and reared children, to all who must find America,
these little tales of ' 'The Man Who Found America " and other
stories are affectionately dedicated.

THE

MAN

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AMERICA

THE MAN Who Found AMERICA

MORE than four hundred years ago, when
King Ferdinand and the wise, gentle Queen
Isabella ruled over Spain, there came one day to
the court, where the King and Queen and all the
brave nobles and beautiful ladies stayed, a poor
man named Christopher Columbus. He was
poor, but he was very wise. He had a great
plan, a plan to get heaps and heaps of shining
pearls, and red rubies, and diamonds, and soft
blue and white and yellow silks, and many other
wonderful things for Spain and the good King
and Queen. Columbus came to tell the King
and Queen about his plan, and to ask them to
help him.

In those days, even the wisest men believed
that the earth was flat, like a table. They
thought that if a ship sailed far, far across the
wide ocean, it would fall off the edge of the
earth, and down, down into a black hole that was
so big and deep that it had no bottom. When
Columbus was a little boy, he would often lie in
the warm, sunny sands by the seashore and listen
to the talk of the sailors, who came together and

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whispered stories of this far-off ocean. Once a
sailor with long black hair and a big black beard
told Christopher how his ship had sailed into a
sea that was so hot that it sometimes boiled up
like water in a tea-kettle. Another very big
sailor, with only one eye, said that he had seen
a big serpent gliding through the water, and
ugly black demons who lay in wait for ships and
men. Another sailor told of a bird as big as
the tallest house. This bird lifted ships in its
claws and dropped them down into the ocean
with a great splash, and all the poor sailors were
drowned. There was an old, old sailor who
said that he had seen a big, black hand come up
out of the sea and catch the ships and drag them
down into the deep ocean. This sailor had a
big, sharp knife in his belt. Once he whispered
to little Christopher that he had sailed and sailed
to the edge of the earth and had looked over the
edge into the deep, black hole. And he said he
was so frightened that his hair, that was as brown
as a tree before, got quite white. He _told little
Christopher that this ocean was so terrible that
people called it "The Sea of Darkness."

After many years little Christopher grew up
to be a brave, wise man. He said, "These stories

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are foolish. They are not true." He had sailed
often on the ocean and he had never seen the
great black bird, or the big hand that came out
of the sea, or any of these terrible things. He
had read books, and he thought all night about
the sea and the earth. "The earth has no edge,"
he said at last; "the earth is round."

One of the books that Columbus read was
about a brave sailor named Marco Polo. This
Marco Polo had gone far away from his little
white house by the sea. He went always towards
the rising sun, sometimes walking, sometimes
riding on queer-looking camels with humps on
their backs. The book told how Marco Polo
had found in that far-off country beautiful, shin-
ing cities, with people in them who had never
heard of God. This country was called the
Indies. Marco Polo had brought home with
him big white pearls and soft silks, and spices
that smelled strange and sweet, and he said that
anyone who could reach the Indies could get
these beautiful things. But it took years and
years to get' there, and there were fierce robbers
on the road, so the people were afraid to go.

Columbus, too, wanted to reach this wonderful
land. But he knew an easier way than the long

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journey Marco Polo had taken. Columbus knew
that the earth was round, like an orange, because
he was very wise. And he said, "If it is round,
then I can sail around it and I won't fall off the
edge of the ocean, because there is no edge. So
I will sail around the earth until I reach the
Indies."

Then it was that Columbus went to the King
and Queen and told them about his plan. The
King and Queen were much surprised at the
strange stories that Columbus told them, and
they called around them their wise men to talk
about it. The wise men of Spain laughed at
Columbus. They said: "Columbus says the
earth is round. If it is round, how do the peo-
ple on the other side live? They would have to
stand on their heads; the rain and snow would
fall up instead of down; the sun would never
shine there, and it would always be dark. People
could not live like that." The wise men told
the King and Queen not to help Columbus,
because he was crazy. And the little boys and
girls made fun of Columbus and touched their
foreheads when he passed them in the streets,
because their fathers had told them that Colum-
bus was crazy.

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So the King and Queen told Columbus that
they would not help him. This made Columbus
very sad. But he knew that he was right, and
he kept on trying. He followed the King and
Queen wherever they went. He went with them
from city to city, always asking them for help.
But there was a great war in Spain, and the King
and Queen were too busy about the war to listen
to Columbus.

At last Columbus said: "If the King and
Queen of Spain will not help me, I will go to
some other king and ask." He started to leave
Spain. You can well believe that he was very
sad. But then a very strange thing happened.
On the way he stopped at a convent to beg some
bread and water for his little son. This boy's
name was Diego, which is the Spanish name for
James. There was a good, wise old man at this
convent. When he heard the story that Columbus
told, he said he would help him. So the good
old man from the convent went to see Queen
Isabella and begged her to help Columbus. He
told her how rich and great Spain would become
if Columbus found the Indies. But still the
Queen was afraid that Columbus was not right,
and she said that she would not help him. Then

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Columbus was angry. He started again to leave
Spain. This time he almost reached the end of
Spain when he heard someone calling to him.
It was a man sent by the Queen. "Good news!
Good news!" cried the man. "Good Queen
Isabella has promised to help you. She has said:
' I will give Columbus ships and men, even if I
must sell my golden crown and my beautiful
rings and chains to get the money.'"

How glad Columbus wasl He had waited a
long, long time, and now, at last, he could go
on his voyage. Queen Isabella gave him three
ships, and sailors .to sail them, and she told
Columbus that if he found the golden Indies she
would give him barrels of shining gold and some
of the pearls and diamonds and silks that he
would find there. Columbus thanked her and
kissed her hand, which is the way people do with
Queens. The King and Queen and all the great
lords, with their shining swords and velvet coats,
and the pretty ladies came down to sea to say
good-by to Columbus, and he sailed away into
the big, strange ocean.

For many days Columbus sailed and sailed
and sailed. At first the sailors with him were
happy and obedient, for Columbus said, "I will

H E

MAN

WHO FOUND AMERICA

give you lots of beautiful things when we reach
the Indies." But as they sailed day after day
into this strange ocean, they grew very, very
much afraid. At night, when Columbus could
not see them, they got together and whispered
to each other stories of the big black hand that
pulled ships down into the sea, and of the great
bird that lifted ships high into the air and then
dropped them deep into the ocean, so that the
poor sailors were drowned. Even the soft, gen-
tle wind that blew always from the east fright-
ened them. "How can we ever get back to
Spain," they cried, "if the wind blows always
away from Spain?" For in those days they had
no steamers, with big engines that can send ships
anywhere. They had only ships with sails, which
went the way the wind blew.

At last the sailors begged Columbus to go
back. "We shall all die in this strange sea,"
they cried, "and we shall never see our wives
and little babies. Let us go back." But
Columbus would not go back. Every day he
told them stories of the rich, beautiful country
which they would find. And he told them to
be brave. But after a while they would not listen
any more; and when they found that Columbus

THE MEN WHO FOUND AMERICA

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would not go back, some of them said: "Let
us throw Columbus into the sea. Then we can
go back to Spain, and if any one asks us, 'Where
is Columbus?' we will say that he fell into the
ocean." Columbus knew what they said, but
he was brave and was not afraid. He believed
that if he sailed far enough he would reach the
beautiful Indies.

Then, one day, they saw something on the
far-off ocean, and the sailors joyfully shouted,
" Land! Land! " But when they sailed near, they
saw it was only a cloud. Then the sailors were
sad again. Every day they all looked out for
land. Queen Isabella had promised a handful
of shining gold to the one who first saw land,
and Columbus said he would also give a fine
velvet coat.

How lonely the poor sailors were! Every day
they saw nothing but the wide, wide ocean, with
the rolling waves. At last, one day, some birds
flew over the ships. "Look! Look!" the sailors
shouted joyfully. And they said, "If there are
birds, there must be land for them to rest on."
But although they looked and looked, and sailed
quickly after the birds, they could not find
land.

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Then, on another day, Columbus fished out
of the sea a hawthorn branch with berries on
it, and a carved stick. The sailors crowded
around to look at the branch and the stick, and
laughed and sang for joy. "There must be land
for the hawthorn to grow on," they said, "and
there must be people who carved this stick."
Everyone was glad and happy and watched eagerly
for land.

Columbus watched too. One night he stood
alone on his ship, looking out over the black
ocean. All at once he saw a little light in the
darkness. It was so little he could not be sure
it was a light. So he called two of his men and
asked them whether they could see the light.
"Yes! yes! " they cried, "we can see it. It seems
to move up and down." Still, they could not be
quite sure until, about two hours afterwards,
when the morning began to grow brighter, one
of the other ships fired a gun. This meant that
they had seen land.

When the sun came up, everyone could see
the land. It was a beautiful land, with waving
green trees and flowers. But it seemed even more
beautiful than it really was to brave Columbus
and his poor, tired sailors, because they had seen

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nothing but the wide ocean for so many days.
They quickly rowed their boats to the shore and
landed. Columbus was dressed in shining steel,
with a beautiful red cloak, and he carried the
red and yellow flag of Spain. His captains also
carried flags. They all knelt down on the shore
and thanked God for bringing them to this
beautiful place.

They did not see any of the beautiful cities
that Marco Polo had written about, but men
came out of the woods and ran up to them on
the beach. These men had straight black hair
and brown skins, with bright-colored feathers in
their hair, and they had hardly any clothes on.
"Look! Look at the people from heaven!" they
cried, when they saw Columbus and his men,
with their white skins and beautiful clothes, and
their ships, which looked like big white birds.
These people were Indians — not fierce like the
Indians we know, but very kind and gentle.
Columbus had never seen an Indian before, and
the Indians had never seen a white man in all
their lives. So both Columbus and the Indians
were very much surprised and looked at each
other for a long time. Columbus was very kind
to the Indians. He gave them little red caps

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and pretty glass beads and little tinkling bells.
The Indians liked these things very much, and
they gave Columbus fresh fruits and beautiful red
and green parrots and little bits of gold.

Columbus called these people Indians because
he thought this country was part of the Indies
that Marco Polo had written about. He did not
know that he had discovered a wonderful new
world, far richer and more beautiful than the
golden Indies. This new world was our own
America, the beautiful land where we all live
now.

After a while, Columbus went back to Spain
to tell the King and Queen about this land.
When Columbus sailed up to the city by the sea,
the people in Spain cheered and rang bells and
fired guns to show their joy. When Columbus
came to the throne, the King and Queen made
him sit down beside them. This was a great
honor, because no one is allowed to sit down
when a king or queen is in the room. So
Columbus sat down and told them how he had
sailed across the Sea of Darkness and at last
found this beautiful country. How glad now
was the good Queen Isabella that she had sent
Columbus! She made him a great lord in Spain

THE

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and gave him gold and jewels; and she kept
his little son Diego always with her, to hold up
her long silken train and to carry her fan and
handkerchief.

Columbus was happy now. But he wanted
to see more of this new land, and he sailed across
the ocean again three times. Once, while he
was away, some wicked men told the King and
Queen lies about Columbus. The King and
Queen believed what these wicked men said, and
they ordered their soldiers to put big iron chains
on Columbus' hands and feet and send him back
to Spain. Poor Columbus! How sad he felt!
When they came to Spain and Columbus saw
Queen Isabella, she soon found that he was a
good man and that the stories about him were
not true, and she told the soldiers to take the
chains off Columbus, and said she was sorry.
But Columbus was still sad, because after he had
found this beautiful country for Spain, they had
put chains on him. So he always kept the
chains, and when he died, he asked the people
to bury the chains with him.

There was another thing that happened that
was not fair to Christopher Columbus. When
a man finds a new country, it always ought to

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be named after him. But our country was never
called Columbia. About seven years after
Columbus found the new country, an Italian,
named Amerigo Vespucci, sailed across the ocean
and wrote a little book about the new land. He
did not say one word about Christopher Columbus
being there first. So many foolish people thought
that Amerigo was the man who found the new
country, and they called it America, in honor of
Amerigo. And this is its name to-day; and this,
I think, will always be its name.

Columbus was old when he died, and he was
poor, too. Good, kind Queen Isabella had died,
and the King forgot that Columbus had found a
beautiful new country for him, and he did not
give him any more money. So Columbus was
sad and poor. After he was dead the people
knew that the country he had found was not the
Indies, but a rich, wonderful country, our own
America. And that is why all good Americans
love the name of Christopher Columbus, because
he came and found America.

THE

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The WHITE TYRANT <DARIEN

CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS was not only
a brave man, he was also a very good man.
I wish that I could say the same of all the Span-
iards who came after him. But many of these
men were cruel and deceitful and wicked. They
were not kind to the Indians, and they fought and
robbed and cheated, and their only thought was
to grow rich.

Now, one of the most wicked of all these
Spaniards was Balboa. His full name was Vasco
Nunez de Balboa, but I think I shall call him
only Balboa. He was as cruel as a man could
be. He liked to see people suffer, and if anyone
was in trouble, Balboa would not help him, but
would laugh at the poor man's misfortune. He
borrowed money and promised to pay it back;
but when the time came, he told the people who
had lent him the money to get it back the best
way they could. He quarreled with everybody,
and everybody said that he was a wicked, wicked
man.

This Balboa was born in Spain; but like many
other Spaniards, he went to America to live.

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Now there was in America a great island called
Hispaniola, where many Spaniards had houses.
These Spaniards were very cruel to the kind,
gentle Indians. They made slaves of them, and
they made them work so very hard and so very
long that many of the poor Indians died. And all
the while the Spaniards lived without doing any
work themselves. They walked about in their
fine clothes, and they drank and swore and
quarreled with one another, and in every way
were as bad as bad could be. And of all these
wicked Spaniards, Balboa was the worst. When-
ever anything wicked was to be done, Balboa
would do it. You see he was not only wicked, but
very brave and very, very bold.

Well, after a while, Balboa grew tired of the
lazy life in Hispaniola. He wanted to become
rich, and it was harder to get money in His-
paniola than in other parts of America. Besides,
nobody in all the island liked Balboa. He was
so cruel and quarrelsome, so unkind to the
Indians, that the people used to look at him coldly,
and shake their heads when they passed him in
the street. Then, too, those who had lent money
to him began to want it back again, and some
men said to Balboa, " If you do not pay back the

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money you owe us, we shall throw you into
prison, and there you can stay in the dark with
the rats and the mice until you die." For in
those cruel days, a man who could not pay his
debts was thrown into prison. Now, you can
well believe that the wicked Balboa was only
too anxious to get away from the island. But
how could he do it? He could not walk away,
because an island has water on all sides, and he
could not go by boat, because he had no money;
so he thought and thought and thought. And at
last Balboa hit upon a very clever plan. One
day he walked down to the sea-coast, where a
ship was being loaded, and when nobody was
watching he quickly crawled into a great empty
wine-cask and pulled the lid on the top. There
he waited and waited, hour after hour, afraid
every moment that someone would miss him and
look in the wine-casks on the boat. He hardly
dared breathe, and even the beating of his heart
seemed to him as loud as a great drum.

But no one came, and at last the boat took up
its anchor and sailed away. Then Balboa was very
happy, for he knew that he was free from His-
paniola and all the pepole who hated him and
all the people to whom he owed money. He

THE WHITE TYRANT OF DARIEN

knew that he would not have to go to prison.
But at first he was afraid to come out of the cask,
because he was afraid of what the captain would
say when he saw him. He waited a good many
hours in the barrel, but at last he gave a shove
to the lid, and out popped the red face and red
beard of Balboa. As he did so, he heard the
captain and all the sailors give a great shout, for
you may be sure that they were much surprised
to see a man's head come out of a barrel.

Now, the captain, whose name was Encisco,
was a very disagreeable man, and he was quite
angry when he saw Balboa's head come out of the
barrel. He did not like to carry people on his
ship for nothing, and he thought that Balboa had
cheated him when he hid himself in a barrel.
"What does this mean?" he shouted, and then
he swore so many oaths that I am glad you and
I were not there, though perhaps we could not
have understood, because it was all in Spanish.

Well, when Balboa told the captain how he
had to run away from the island, and how he had
no money to pay for the voyage, Encisco became
angrier and angrier. He stamped his foot and
shook his fist; his eyes got black, and he swore
and swore and swore. "I will tell you what I

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will do with you," roared the captain so loud
that the wicked Balboa shook with fear; "I shall
put you on a desert island without food or water
and you can starve to death, you wicked cheater."
Now, I must say that Balboa was a brave man,
but at these cruel words he became very fright-
ened. He knew that Encisco would do as he
said. In those days people did not think much
about killing each other, and Balboa was so cruel
himself that he would have treated the captain
just as cruelly as the captain was now going to
treat him; so Balboa threw himself on his
knees and begged the captain to spare his life.
He begged and begged, but the more he begged,
the more the captain swore and the angrier he
grew. But at last, he did feel a little sorry for
Balboa; so he said, "Get up from your knees.
This time I will spare your life." Now, you
will think, perhaps, that Balboa was very grateful
to the captain for sparing his life, but really he
was not. He kissed the captain's hand and
thanked him over and over again, and swore that
he would lay down his life for Encisco whenever
he wished it; but in his real secret heart he
hated the captain and only waited for the chance
to do him harm.

HfUlMt

THE WHITE TYRANT OF D A R I E N

t&»

Well, the chance came sooner even than Balboa
had thought. One day a great storm came up
and the little ship tossed and rocked and everybody
was afraid that the boat would go down. The
sailors, who were wicked men, went down on
their knees and tried to pray that their lives
might be spared. But they had all forgotten
how to say their prayers, and the storm grew
worse and worse, and at last the little ship was
dashed to pieces on a rocky coast. The sailors
all fell into the sea, but luckily for them the water
was not deep and they were able to swim ashore
alive. At last the men were all on land again,
but not one of them knew the name of the place
or the name of the country where they had been
wrecked. They looked up and down the coast,
but everywhere they found only sand and rocks,
and back a little way great woods of waving
palm-trees.

Now the captain ought always to know where
he takes his ship; so each of the sailors asked
the captain the name of the country. But the
captain had never been in any of that country,
and he did not know the name any better than
the sailors; so you may well believe that they
were all very much frightened. Then up spoke

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THE

MEN WHO FOUND AMERICA

the crafty Balboa. He had been very quiet and
respectful on the boat, because he was still afraid
of the desert island; but here on the land he was
as bold as you please. " Captain," he said, "I know
where we are, for I have been here before. This
is the country of Darien, and a little way off is
an Indian village to which I will take you."

Now, when the sailors heard these words of
Balboa, they were very glad. They cheered and
cheered and threw up their caps, which were still
wet from the sea-water. Then they all started
off for the Indian village, everybody following
bold Balboa, and if you had looked on at
this strange march, you would have thought that
Balboa was the real captain and Encisco only a
sailor. It was not easy to march through this
country of Darien, because the Indians were very
unfriendly. You see, before this time some other
Spaniards had come to the country, and robbed
and killed and tortured the Indians. Perhaps
Balboa was one of these very men. Well, any-
way, the Indians did not love the white men who
had been so cruel, and so from behind trees they
shot arrows at the ship-wrecked sailors. Many
sailors were killed and more were wounded; but
Balboa, though very wicked, was a brave and

■

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,,«

THE WHITE

TYRANT

O F

D A R I E N

wise General, and he beat off the Indians and
got the sailors safely to the little Indian village.

At last the time had come for Balboa to make
Captain Encisco sorry for wanting to put him off
on a desert island. You see Balboa could never
forgive the captain for making him kneel and
beg for his life. Besides, he was very proud and
wanted all the glory for himself. So Balboa took
the sailors aside one by one, and whispered to
each of them, "Encisco is a poor captain and I
am a good one. Make me your captain and I
will treat you better than Encisco does." So
the sailors all made Balboa their captain.

Now, at last, Balboa had his wish and was a
great man in a new country. Here he could
get money and become very rich ; but I am
sorry to say that he was always very, very cruel.
He used to rob the poor Indians and murder
them, and when they did not have as much gold
as he wanted, he would tie them up by their
thumbs until they screamed with pain. He made
them hang there until they told him where more
gold could be found. Sometimes the poor
Indians would not know; but just to be rid of
the pain, they would pretend that gold was hid-
den in the forest and they would take Balboa to

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THE

M E N

\Y H 0

FOUND AMERICA

a^_

the place. But if Balboa did not find any gold
there, and often he did not, it went still worse
with the poor Indians. He would burn them
alive on a slow fire, so that they would suffer
great pain. Indeed, he grew so cruel that the
Indians called him "The White Tyrant of
Darien."

One day the son of an Indian chief came to
where Balboa was living and spoke to the tyrant.
"You always want gold," said he, "but I will
show you something still better. Come with me
a few days to the West, and you may see an
ocean as great as the great sea you sailed when
you camefromyourhome." Now, Balboa thought,
"If I can find this great sea and be the first
white man to look at it, then I shall be a famous
man. Besides, there may be gold and silver and
jewels in the lands beyond this new sea." So off
he went, taking with him the chief's son and
some of the Spanish sailors. It was not a long
journey, and in a few days they came to a
mountain. This the Indian told Balboa to climb.
" From the top," he said, "you will see the great
ocean."

Balboa told all his men to stay below, and he
went up alone to the top of the mountain; and

THE WHITE TYRANT

O F

D A R I E N

&er\

what the Indian had said came true. There lay
the great sea, stretching in all directions as far
as the eye could reach. The blue waters were
as quiet as a little lake ; but Balboa knew that
this was a great ocean. And it was a great
ocean — the Pacific Ocean, which is the greatest
body of water in the world. So Balboa, who had
run away from Hispaniola and had hidden him-
self in a barrel, was the first white man to see it.

Then Balboa, wicked and cruel though he
was, knelt down on the top of the mountain
and thanked God that he had been the first to
see this great ocean. After that he called up
his men. Up they ran, each trying to be the
first, and when they reached the top, they all
looked with wonder at the great, peaceful sea,
that shone so beautifully in the noonday sun.

Then the men piled up great stones until
there was a high heap, and Balboa went down
the mountain and carved the name of King
Ferdinand upon the bark of the trees. A few
days later Balboa came down the mountain to
the sea, which before he had only seen, but not
touched. He walked a little way out into the
ocean, and, waving his sword in the air, cried
out in a loud voice that all that great sea and

THE

M E N

W H O

FOU N D

A M E R I C

all the islands in it and all the lands about it
belonged to Ferdinand, the King of Spain.

Now, if any one did such a foolish thing to-
day, I believe that we would all laugh at him.
A great ocean cannot belong to any one man,
even if he is a King, or even to any one nation,
but to all the nations and all the people of the
world. But King Ferdinand was very proud
when he heard of what the bold Balboa had
done, and so he made him the ruler of the
great ocean he had found.

But the wicked Balboa did not go without
punishment for all his evil deeds. Every day he
became more hard and more cruel. He did
not keep his promise to be kinder than Encisco,
and everybody hated him, even the people who
knew that he was brave. So one day the Gov-
ernor of Darien had him sent to prison, and a
short time after that Balboa's head was cut off.

I do not know that anybody was sorry. Balboa
was a very brave, bold man, and he did find the
Pacific Ocean. But the braver a man is, the
more gentle and kind and good he should be;
so I think Balboa deserved his death, just as he
deserved the name the Indians had given him
of "The White Tyrant of Darien."

iimiiimt

THE BEAUTIFUL CITY OF THE FLOATING ISLANDS

: ■ - ......

■&BF

THE BEAUTIFUL CITY

.//^ FLOATING ISLANDS

COLUMBUS had gone on his great journey
to find gold, but nowhere did he find it.
Other Spaniards came to America, all looking for
gold, like Columbus. But gold does not grow-
in the street nor on the dusty roads. It is found
in gold mines, deep, deep under the earth, where
men work by candle-light and dig and dig.

Now, there was a man named Cortez, who
wanted gold — much gold. He wanted to become
a very rich man and go back to Spain, and live
in a beautiful castle, with servants, and horses,
and fine clothes, and jewels of many colors that
glistened in the sun. Cortez was a very young
man when he went to America to live. He was
only nineteen, but he was strong and as brave as
a lion. There was a Spanish Governor in the
island where Cortez lived, and the Governor did
not like Cortez. He threw the young man into
prison, and when Cortez escaped, the Governor
threw him in again. But Cortez was very brave
and very clever, and so once more he got away,

iiriiiii—M*i»^— ■' ii i ii" in

THE

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and hid himself so that the Governor could not
find him.

Now, there had come news from further west,
from the land which we now call Mexico, that
there was much gold in that land. So the
Governor of the island said to himself, "I will
send some soldiers there, and they will take the
gold away from the Indians and bring it to me;
then I shall be a rich man, and can go back to
Spain and live in a castle." For in those days
there were castles in Spain, large and gray and
beautiful, with great iron gates and a ditch of
water all around, so that no man could enter
except the friends of the owner. You see the
Governor of this island wanted to be rich and
great, and that is why he sent a little army of
Spanish soldiers to the new land of Mexico.

"Who is the man that will lead my army?"
asked the Governor. "There will be many
dangers. Perhaps the ships will go down in a
storm and all will be drowned; perhaps the food
will give out and the soldiers and their Generals will
die from hunger, or it may be that the Indians
will fight them and shoot them to death with
bows and arrows. I must have a good General —
strong, and as brave as a lion." And then he

immiitK

BEAUTIFUL CITY OF THE FLOATING ISLANDS

- .L-

]

thought of Cortez, the brave, strong young
Spaniard, and he made him General of the little
army. USE

So one day the ships sailed away to the new
land of Mexico. Cortez cheered the men by telling
them stories of the great country they were going
to find. "We are to sail and to fight," said he;
"to fight for our good King, for Spain and for God.
The people that live in this land are not Christians.
They do not believe in our God, and we must
teach them about Him and make them Christ-
ians." But even while he spoke, the young
Cortez thought of gold, gold, gold — dollars of
gold piled up to the sky; goblets and plates and
dishes of gold; tables and chairs of gold. Gold,
gold, yellow gold, that would make the young
Spaniard the richest man in all the world.

The little ships took up their anchors and
sailed west towards the sun setting in the waters.
It was a beautiful sea, all green and blue, with here
and there reefs of white coral, and at last, far in
the distance, they saw the beautiful new land of
Mexico. The sun shone bright upon the green
trees of the forest, and all the flowers of the field,
red and purple and blue and yellow, glistened in
the bright light. The boats came up to the shore.

THE MEN

WHO

FOUND

A M E R I C

Wu^^^m^B*

"Here," cried Cortez, as he stood on the white
beach, "here I shall found my city, and I shall
call it the 'City of the True Cross,' in honor of
God and the good King of Spain." And to this
day the city bears that name — the "City of the
True Cross."

Now, there lived in the new land of Mexico,
high up behind the mountains, a nation of
Indians called Aztecs. They were very proud
and strong and brave, and had conquered many
peoples. These Aztecs were not like the Indians
we see in the circus. They had a beautiful city
made of wood and stone, with houses full of gold
and silver ornaments, and this wonderful city was
built upon floating islands. The King of the
Aztecs was a very great man. His name was
Montezuma, and his father had been King before
him and his grandfather had been King before
him; and so, for so many, many years, that no one
among the Aztecs, even the oldest, could remem-
ber.

Now, there was a story among the Aztecs that
some day the Children of the Sun would come
from the East and drive Montezuma and his
Indians away. These Children of the Sun,
according to the story, were not red like the

■BMM

The kind King Montezuma wanted peace, and said that he would give the
Spaniards more gold if they would only go back to their own country."

THE BEAUTIFUL CITY OF THE FLOATING ISLANDS

V:~.

zger

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Aztecs, but white like Cortez and his Spanish
soldiers. So when Montezuma heard of the
white men, who had come and founded the
City of the True Cross, he called his wise men
together. They were very old and very wise,
and they bowed deep to Montezuma, because he
was King, and they listened to what he said.

"Now, my Lords," said Montezuma to the
wise men about him, "I have strange news to
tell you. There have come from the East the
Children of the Sun. They are white men, with
black hair and beards, and their clothes are
made of metal as bright as silver, so that it
glistens in the sun. They ride on big, strong
animals that run faster than a man." You
see, Montezuma had never seen horses. "And,"
went on the King, "these children have come
here in houses that sail on the sea — in ships
such as we Aztecs know not of. I fear that,
when they see our beautiful city, they will kill
our people, and then the Aztec nation will be
no more."

The King paused, and in the great hall, where
the wise men were gathered, all was silent, so
silent that the breathing of the wise men could
be heard. Then again the King spoke:

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■;■ ■- '

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rr-rr— — ^R*.-1 -

WHO FOUND AMERICA

"My Lords!" he called out, "what shall I
do?"

And a young man, the bravest of all the
Aztec princes, arose quietly and, facing the King,
answered his question.

'The Aztecs, my Lord," he said, "have always
fought. We must do as our fathers have ever
done, fight for our King and our beautiful 'City
of the Floating Islands.'"

Montezuma was silent as he listened to the
brave words of the young prince, and all the
wise men were silent too.

Then a very old man, the oldest and wisest
of all the wise men in the kingdom, rose in his
turn; and all the wise men listened as the old
man spoke.

"Not so, my gracious King, not so," he said
slowly. "We are brave men, but we cannot
fight the Children of the Sun. It is true that
our soldiers are many and the white men are
few; but the Sun has given to them his fire.
They have tubes that are called guns, and when
the Indians fight these white children, the tubes
speak out fire and noise, which kill the red men.
Where are our brothers to the East who have
fought the white men? Dead, my Lord, dead.

r«W

THE BEAUTIFUL CITY OF THE FLOATING ISLANDS

We cannot fight against the Sun or against his
children. We must send to the white men
presents — rich presents of gold and silver, and
beg them to go away in their houses that sail the
sea — to go away, they, and their horses, and their
guns, and not come up to our beautiful city."

And as the old man had said, so the King
Montezuma did. He gathered together great
chests of gold and silver, dresses and cloaks of
bright green peacock feathers, and heaps and
heaps of red rubies, and milky white pearls, and
precious jewels that glistened in the sun. "Take
these to the white men," he said to his servants;
"take this gold and silver and all these beautiful
gifts to the white men, who are Children of the
Sun, and beg them to go away and not come
up to our beautiful city."

The servants did as Montezuma had bidden
them. They did not have horses, but all day
and all night they ran as swift as the bird flies,
until at last they came to where Cortez and his
soldiers waited. Then they fell on their knees
and bowed their heads to the ground.

"Behold, oh Children of the Sun," they said,

"this gold and silver, and all these rubies and

)recious stones, and all these beautiful things

fir r

THE

M E N

W H O

FOUND

A M E R I C A

Siiy

are the presents of our good King Montezuma
to the white men who have come from the East ;
and our King Montezuma begs the white men
not to go up to his beautiful city, but to take
the gold and silver and to go away in their
wonderful houses that sail on the sea."

Now, when Cortez saw all the gold and silver
that Montezuma had sent, he became very greedy.
He wanted still more gold, and he knew that if
Montezuma could send him such beautiful
presents, there must be great riches in the won-
derful city. So he said to the waiting servants,
"Tell your good King Montezuma that I thank
him for the gold and silver which he has sent
me, and that I and all my men with me will
come to visit him in his beautiful city."

Then the servants went back with the mes-
sage. Now.it was a long and dangerous journey
to the beautiful city of the Aztecs, and Cortez
feared that his men might be afraid to go so far
from their ships, so he called them together.
"I am going on a long and dangerous journey,"
he said; "those who go with me shall become
rich, very rich, but those who are afraid can
stay here on the seacoast." And the soldiers
answered, "You are our General, Cortez, and

, ■jMUL',//fl'(tf i^ft'Viiirrltiiiia^giii'ii

THE BEAUTIFUL CITY OF THE FLOATING ISLANDS

sss

where you go we will go too." Then Cortez
burned his ships so that no one could turn back,
and with his little army marched up to the
beautiful city where King Montezuma lived.

Now, when Montezuma heard that the white
men were coming to his beautiful city, he did
not know what to do. Some of his wise men
said, " Let us fight the Children of the Sun," and
others said, "Let us have peace; let us welcome
the white men as guests to our city." So Monte-
zuma did not know what to do.

When Cortez reached the high lands and
looked out upon the city, he saw the strangest
sight in the world. The city was built on islands
that floated on the lakes, and there was water all
about it, and bridges with gates, and soldiers that
stood by the gates to keep the white men out.
And Cortez was afraid. You see the bridges were
very narrow, and it would have been very easy
for the Aztecs to shoot the Spanish soldiers as
they crossed the bridges; so the crafty Cortez
said to the Indians, "Listen, my friends; let us
come into your beautiful City of the Floating
Islands, for we are tired after our long journey.
Let us rest with you a little, for we are your
friends and we wish you to be ours."

THE

MEN

W H 0

FOUND

AMERICA

So the Aztecs let the white men cross the
bridges and enter the gates of their city. Now,
as soon as Cortez and his soldiers were inside
the city they behaved very badly. They went out
on the streets and quarreled with the Aztecs.
They found fault with the palace, which the good
King Montezuma had given them to live in, and
they always thought of ways in which to take from
the Aztecs their gold and silver and precious
stones. Now, Cortez, who was very strong and
brave, was also very cruel and deceitful. He invited
Montezuma to come and see him in his palace,
and when the Aztec King came to see him,
Cortez told his soldiers to hold him prisoner.
Then the white men went out into the streets
and fought the good Indians and killed many of
them. The kind King Montezuma wanted peace,
and said that he would give the Spaniards more
gold if they would only go back to their own
country. But the Spaniards did not wish to go
back, not until they had found all the gold and
silver in all the land of the Aztecs. So they
fought battles, many battles, and the Spaniards,
who were brave, but very, very cruel, conquered
all that country. Many of the Aztecs were killed,
and even the good King Montezuma lost his life.

UlliUlltft

THE BEAUTIFUL CITY OF THE FLOATING ISLANDS

rM*i~

Thus it all came to pass just as the wise men
had foretold, and the City of the Floating Islands
became the white men's city.

But it did not go well with Cortez. To be
sure, at first he became very rich, and had
beautiful houses, and lands, and horses, and gold
and silver; but he did not long keep these things.
He grew poor again, and when he got to be an
old man, he was very sad and unhappy. And
sometimes I think he must have been sorry for
his cruelties, and lies, and wickedness, and for all
the unkind things he did to the poor Aztecs when
he and his soldiers went up into Mexico and
conquered the beautiful City of the Floating
Islands.

THE

MEN WHO FOUND AMERICA

THE SWINEHERD WHO
WANTED A CASTLE

ONCE upon a time, there lived in a little
village in Spain a boy who tended pigs.
He was a very ragged boy. His clothes were
old and torn; he wore no cap, and he had never
in all his life had on a pair of shoes. His food
was even worse than his clothing. He ate nuts
and grapes and stale crusts of bread, and some-
times he had cheese. But meat he could not
have more than once a month. This was be-
cause the boy was very, very poor.

Now, it is not pleasant to tend pigs. They
are such dirty animals, and they grunt and grunt
and make ugly noises all the time. It is very
disagreeable to sit all day and have nothing to
do but to talk to filthy pigs, and see that they
do not walk off into the woods and get lost.
So the little Spanish boy hated his work and
wished that he could get away.

The name of this little boy was Francisco
Pizarro. I do not wish to pretend that he was
a good boy, because he was not. He was a

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THE SWINEHERD W H O W A NTED

AST

::;j

bad boy, and he grew up to be a wicked man;
but one thing I must say for him, he was surely
very brave. And perhaps he became bad be-
cause, as a boy, he did not have a good home
nor any nice boys to play with.

Near where Francisco lived was a beautiful
castle. It had big, light rooms, and long tables,
and fine gilt chairs, and wonderful pictures, and
everything that the heart could desire. Fran-
cisco had never seen the inside of this castle.
There was a great wall all around it, and in this
wall a big, strong gate that was locked every
night. A soldier in a yellow-and-red coat stood
at this gate, and of course he would not let the
ragged little swineherd in. The young Fran-
cisco used to watch the old soldier as he pulled
at his mustache, and sometimes, when the soldier
wasn't looking, the boy pressed his head against
the iron bars and looked into the garden. He
could only see a little corner of the castle, but
he saw the beautiful trees in the garden, and the
soft, green grass and the fountain which seemed
so cool in the hot afternoons.

It made Francisco very angry to see this
beautiful garden and not be allowed to go into
it. He complained to his mother, but she could

THE MEN

\Y H O

FOUND

AMERICA

~ " -'-*T?g

■ V

r-7V

not do anything, because it wasn't her castle,
and she was as poor as Francisco. 'You are
only a swineherd," she said to him, "and swine-
herds cannot have castles; so stop thinking of
the castle and go back to your pigs."

But Francisco did not stop thinking of the
castle. He had seen in the garden a little boy
of his own age, and he saw that the boy's
clothes were made of fine, soft cloth, and that
he had a lovely black feather in his cap. He
remembered, too, that a kind old man, with a
long white beard, had walked with this boy in
the garden, and had taught him many things
out of a great book. Poor Francisco had never
been to school, and he had never had a teacher,
like this boy with the fine clothes; but he
wanted all the things that the little boy in the
garden had, and he made up his mind that he
would get them.

I told you before that Francisco was not a
good boy, and so he did not ask himself whether
it was right for him to want all these things.
"I do not care," he said almost out loud; "I
do not care what my mother says, or what the
priest says, or anybody. Good or bad, right or
wrong, I am going to get my castle." That

THE SWINEHERD WHO

will show you the sort of a boy Francisco really
was.

Now, Francisco saw that it was no use to
stay in his little village; there he would always
be a swineherd. Every day he hated the pigs
more and more. He hated them so much that
he threw stones at them when they squealed.
At last, with two other boys, he ran away. I
think that Francisco and his two friends were
a little afraid, at first, that their mothers would
send after them and catch them. So they went
away by night, and by the next morning they
were far along the quiet road. Day after day
they walked. They used to find chestnuts on
the ground, and over the high, green hedges
hung bunches of wild purple grapes that any-
body might pick. The good country people
were all as poor as poor could be; but they
always gave the tired boys a bite of bread and
a cup of goat's milk. Francisco was very
happy. He was glad to be away from the dirty,
squealing pigs, and he believed that every step
he took brought him nearer to the castle he had
dreamed of.

At last, the boys reached Seville. Now,
Seville was a very large and beautiful city.

CASTLE

THE MEN WHO FOUND AMERICA

vSi

There were fine houses and glorious palaces,
like the castle that Francisco wanted, and women
in beautiful dresses and men rode up and
down the crowded streets on great black horses.
It was all like Wonderland; and, as Francisco
looked at everything — the streets, shops and
people — his eyes almost popped out of his head.

But in this rich city of Seville, Francisco
was poorer than ever before in all his life.
Here in the great city nobody cared for the
ragged boy, and there were no kind country
people to give him bread and goat's milk. Yet,
after a while, Francisco managed to make a little
money, though even then he was still poor.
Often he went to bed without supper, and his
castle seemed to be as far away as ever.

Of all the things in the great city of Seville,
Francisco liked the soldiers best. They seemed
so big and brave in their beautiful uniforms, and
the boy envied them and wished that he, too,
could be a soldier. "It's a good way to get
rich," he thought to himself. It was a good
way in those times. Nowadays people don't
get rich by killing each other; but in the olden
days, to be a soldier was one of the best ways

Lto get money and become great.

r/er/

mimiiiw

THE SWINEHERD WHO WANTED A CASTLE

tgi0m

So Pizarro, who was now quite big and strong,
became a soldier. A great war was being fought
in Italy, and Pizarro was sent there with other
Spanish soldiers to fight for his King. The
young man was very brave. I think that, even
then, he was cruel, but the Spaniards did not
care about that, so long as he was only brave.
So when he came back from the great war in
Italy, everybody said "Pizarro is a very good
soldier."

Now, in the meantime, Columbus had found
America. I told you, in another story, how the
people in Spain were very glad over the news,
and how everybody wanted to go to the wonder-
ful new lands to make a fortune. Well, you
may be sure that Pizarro wanted to go too; but
for a long time he could not leave Spain. I
cannot tell you why, because I do not know
myself. Anyhow, he could not. But at last he
got a chance, and with a band of other Spaniards
went to the new country that Columbus had
found.

By this time Pizarro was no longer a boy,
nor even a young man; he was almost forty
years of age. He had seen many lands and
done many things; yet he was still poor, and it

iQ?

fcUffitf

THE

M E X

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FOUND

AMERICA

seemed to him as though the castle that he had
dreamed of as a boy was as far away as ever.

Well, at first America was no better than
Spain. Pizarro lived on a rich island, which
was then named Hispaniola, but which is now
called Cuba. There were many other Spaniards
on the island, and these were all just as greedy
and anxious to get rich as Pizarro. They were
a very wicked set of men. All the bad things
that a man can do they did; but above all, they
were cruel to the poor Indians. They used to
make the red men work for them day and night,
and if the work was not enough, they beat the
poor Indians until they died. I think that
Pizarro was just as cruel as the rest; but in
spite of his wickedness he did not get rich.

Now, after a while, when Pizarro was almost
fifty years old, he went to a new country in
America, where the Indians were very rich, and
where there were very few Spaniards. This was
the land of Darien, where Balboa had gone
about ten years before. Here the friendly
Indians had much gold and many beautiful
jewels. They gave to Pizarro many precious
stones and more gold than he had had in all
his life; so the swineherd became rich at last.

HUlliB

THE SWINEHERD WHO WANTED A CASTLE

sger

But Pizarro was not satisfied even with these
riches. The more he had, the more he wanted;
so one day, when he heard of some islands in
the great ocean to the West, where the Indians
were very rich, he made up his mind to go to
these islands and take the gold from these In-
dians. His men were very glad to go, so they
got canoes and paddled out to where the islands
lay. This was a very bold thing to do, because
the sea was rough, and many times the canoes
turned over and the soldiers were almost
drowned.

At last they reached the island, and Pizarro,
standing up in his canoe, saw the Indians crowd-
ing on the beach, with their bows and arrows
in hand, ready to shoot the first Spaniard who
landed. Now, Pizarro, though a wicked and
greedy man, was very brave; so he told his
soldiers to fire their guns. As soon as the In-
dians heard the guns of the Spaniards they were
frightened, and after a little battle they ran
away. Then Pizarro and his men landed on
the sandy beach. Here they found many pearls,
which they took, and when there were no more
pearls on the island, they paddled back to their
homes.

;•/)• A

THE MEN WHO FOUND AM ERIC

-J,"':

When Pizarro had sold these pearls he was
very rich indeed. He had now enough money
to buy his castle. It was really not exactly a
castle, but a fine, big house in Darien, with
fields around it and cattle, and a great many
Indian servants to do whatever Pizarro wanted.
You would think now that Pizarro would be
satisfied, for he was a hundred times richer than
the other little boy who used to live in the castle
in the old, old days when Pizarro was only a
swineherd.

But the greedy Pizarro was never satisfied.
After a few years, he heard how the brave
Cortez had conquered Mexico, and he heard,
too, that Cortez had become even richer than
he was. So Pizarro wanted to be as rich as
Cortez, and he looked around for a new nation
to conquer.

Now, at this time there was living in Peru,
many hundreds of miles to the South, a great
tribe of Indians called the Incas. They were
not savages, but wise, kind people like the
Aztecs of Mexico, whom Cortez had conquered.
These Incas were very rich. They had won-
derful gold and silver mines, and they owned so
much gold and silver that they could cover

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Sm:

" If you will let me go free, Pizarro, I will till up this room with gold, and

it will all be yours."

THE SWINEHERD WHO WANTED A CASTLE

A-.i

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walls with them; and they also had precious
stones, green emeralds, red rubies, blue sapphires
and beautiful, brilliant diamonds that glistened
in the sun.

I could tell you many things about these
curious people — how they prayed to the sun and
the moon instead of to God; of the wonderful
temples and palaces that they built; of their
fine, hard roads cut through the mountains, and
of the King's messengers, who ran along these
roads, day and night, carrying news. I could
tell you how all the people obeyed the Inca,
who was King of the country; how they all
worked for him, and how he gave them food
and clothing and houses, so that no man in all
the land was ever hungry or thirsty or cold.

Now, when Pizarro heard of these Incas, he
thought to himself, "I will go up to Peru and
fight with these people, and take away from
them all their gold and silver and jewels and all
their cities and palaces." I think that it was
wicked of Pizarro to want to disturb these good,
quiet people, and it seems to me that the man
who had been a poor swineherd should have
been satisfied with the money he had, and could
have left the Incas alone.

THE

M E N

W H O

FOUND

AMERICA

But Pizarro was always greedy. He got
together a little band of soldiers and started to
go up to Peru. I say up, because Peru was
high up among the mountains. Pizarro thought
that it would be easy to find Peru; but things
did not go as he had hoped. Nobody could
tell him where the great country lay, and there
were no maps to show him the way. By mis-
take, Pizarro and his little army landed on a
lonely desert island in the Pacific Ocean. There
were swamps and marshes on this island, and
there was little to eat, and even the water was
not good to drink. The men suffered from
mosquitoes and great flies, that stung them so
they could not sleep. And worse than all, there
were poisonous snakes that bit the men so that
they died. They suffered from hunger and
thirst, and some fell sick and died. Pizarro
sent back his ship for more men and more food,
and I am sure he was glad when, after a few
weeks, the white sails were seen again. The
ship brought plenty of food ; but the Governor
of Darien, who was jealous of Pizarro, would
not send any more soldiers. Instead, he sent
word by the ship to Pizarro, saying, "Pizarro,
you must come back to Darien."

THE SWINEHERD WHO W A X T EL) A CASTLE

Now, the men were only too glad to go back.
They had suffered enough, and they did not
want to be bitten and starved any more — no,
not for a hundred Perus. "We will go home,"
they said, "as our Governor says." At first the
bold Pizarro said nothing; then with the point
of his sword he drew a sharp line in the sand.

"North of this line," he said, "is home;
south of this line are Peru and glory and gold."
And then he stepped across the line, meaning
that he was going to Peru, even if he had to go
alone. The soldiers all saw that Pizarro was a
brave man, but none of them wanted to go
with him. "We do not wish to be killed,"
they said to themselves. At last, the pilot of
the ship, a brave, reckless fellow, with a long
beard, named Luiz, crossed the line. "I go,"
he said, "wherever Pizarro leads." After that
others followed. At last there were thirteen
men across the line who were willing to go with
Francisco Pizarro.

These brave men, I can tell you, had a pretty
hard time before they reached Peru. They had
to cross the sea on a raft, which is a very danger-
ous thing to do. But the Indians were kind to
them and gave them food to eat, and when they

' ' V*-V" ■ ■ I

THE

M E N

WHO FOUND AMERICA

got to Peru the Incas were even kinder. Now,
Pizarro was not only greedy, but he was also
very deceitful, and he made believe to the Incas
that he was their friend; but all the time that
he was taking their beautiful presents, he was
learning about the country, so that he could
come back in a little while with a bigger army
and rob and murder them.

And, in a few years, Pizarro did come back
with a big army. This time he had two hundred
men and thirty horses and a great many guns.
The Incas in all their lives had never seen a
horse, and had never seen people killed with
guns; so Pizarro knew that they would be very
much frightened when they saw his men on
horses, and saw the guns that killed with bullets.
And they were afraid. Wherever Pizarro and
his soldiers went, the Incas lost their courage.
When they saw a man on a horse, they thought
that it was all one animal, half man and half
horse; and so frightened were they, that Pizarro
came to one city that was quite empty, for all
the people had run away in fear of the cruel
Spaniards who were half men and half horses.

Yet I do not think that Pizarro would have
conquered Peru if he had fought fair. There

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THE SWINEHERD WHO WANTED A CASTLE

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were so many soldiers among the Incas that they
seemed to spring up everywhere; but Pizarro
was very crafty, and he thought out a very
clever, cruel plot. He made believe he was
a friend to the Inca, who was the great King of
all these people, and he invited him on a visit.
Then when the Inca came to visit Pizarro, that
wicked man had him arrested and cast into
prison, and all the Indians who were with the
Inca were killed or driven away.

Now, the Inca was a very brave young man,
but he did not want to be killed. He knew
that when he was dead, his soldiers would lose
their courage. After a while, he noticed that
Pizarro was very greedy for gold; so he said to
him, "If you will let me go free, Pizarro, I will
fill up this room with gold, and it will all be
yours."

The greedy old Pizarro was very happy over
this, for he always wanted gold. Now, I do
not know why any man should want so very
much gold, because you cannot eat it or drink
it or wear it. But Pizarro was greedy, as greedy
as any old man in all the world, and so he
promised the Inca to let him go free if he filled
up the room with gold. The Inca sent for his

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(itepy;.

THE MEN WHO FOUND AMERICA

■ ■■-■ i

messengers, and day after day the servants of
the Inca came carrying great heaps of gold.
At last, after six months, the room was almost
filled to the ceiling; but even then the treacher-
ous Pizarro did not keep his word. He made
believe that the Inca was trying to raise an army
against the Spaniards (which I think he would
have had a right to do if he wanted to, for, after
all, the country belonged to him and not to the
cruel Spaniards); so, instead of letting the
brave Inca go home, as he had promised, the
cruel Pizarro told him he must die, and the
very same day he had the Inca put to death.

After that, the greedy, deceitful Pizarro got
more gold, and more gold, and always more and
more and more. Wherever he went he made
the people give him money. He really ruled
the country, although he pretended to the In-
dians that he did not, and he ruled it very
cruelly indeed, and every day he became richer.

But after all, the money he got did not do
him any good. He was now one of the richest
men in all the world. But nobody loved him,
and I think that in his secret heart Pizarro was
not very happy. Every day the savage old man
became more greedy and more wicked and more

THE SWINEHERD WHO WANTED A CASTLE

i u

cruel, until not only did the Indians fear him
and hate him, but the Spaniards hated him even
more. There was a man named Almagro, who
had once been his friend; but Pizarro cheated
him, too, and then murdered him. Well, at
last, one day, the son of this Almagro, a young
man named Diego, went to Pizarro's palace with
some of his friends. "You have killed my
father," cried Diego; "now it is your turn."
The cruel old Pizarro, though he was seventy
years old, fought bravely to the end; but he
was stabbed over and over again, and at last he
fell dead at the feet of Diego.

And thus ended the life of the brave, wicked
Pizarro, the swineherd who wanted a castle.
He became one of the richest men in all the
world and conquered a nation; yet sometimes I
think he would have been happier if he had
always remained till the end of his days a poor
swineherd.

M E N

WHO FOUND AMERICA

THE NOBLE Who Became a SLAVE

DURING all this time, while Cortez was
fighting in Mexico and Pizarro was mak-
ing his plans to go to Peru, there lived in Spain
a great noble, named Cabeza de Vaca. This
man was always talking about America. He
could tell you about Christopher Columbus and
his great voyages, and about Balboa and Cortez,
and all the other Spaniards who had gone to
America. Whenever any ship came back from
that land, De Vaca was always anxious to hear
all the news.

Now, as the years went on, De Vaca thought
that he, too, would like to go to America. He
said to himself, "If Cortez can find gold and
riches in that country, why cannot I?" Be-
sides, he believed, like so many others at that
time, that somehow or other he could find a way
through America to the Indies. The Indies
were supposed to be very rich, and De Vaca
thought it was a country with more cities than
the stars of the heavens. He had been told
that each of these cities had more people in it
than you could count in a year, and he also

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JlilH*^

THE- NOBLE WHO BECAME

SLAVE

§§

thought that all these people had gold and dia-
monds and rubies, and would give them to you
for little glass beads. "If I only can find a
way to this place," he said to himself, "I shall
be the richest man in the world. I shall be as
great as the great King."

So, because he wished to find gold in America
and because he wanted to find a way to another
land which, he thought, was even richer than
America, De Vaca sailed away to the West.
He was not the captain of the fleet; but, being
a rich lord, he was, of course, very important.
West the ships sailed, until one bright day in
Spring they landed at Tampa Bay, in Florida.

Now, Cabeza de Vaca and the Spaniards with
him were not the first men who had come to
Florida. This part of the country had been
found about sixteen years earlier by a rich
Spaniard named Ponce de Leon; and the story
of how Ponce de Leon came to find Florida is
so interesting that I must tell you about it.

Ponce de Leon was one of the brave men
who had sailed with Columbus across the great
ocean, and afterwards he had been made Governor
of an island called Porto Rico. He was rich, and
famous, and powerful; but he was not happy,

THE

MEN

WHO FOUND AMERICA

because he was growing old and he wanted to
be young.

In those days the people believed that old
men could grow young again, just as they
believed many other things that we now know
are very foolish. One day an Indian came to
the great Ponce de Leon and said to him, "If
you will go to the islands of the West you will
find there a magic fountain. Bathe your hands
in the fountain and drink the waters, and as soon
as you have done so, a strange thing will
happen. Your white beard will become black;
your dim eyes will grow clear; your weak, thin
legs will grow strong and stout again."

Ponce de Leon loved youth more than he loved
money or power or anything else in the world.
So he made up his mind to sail away on a ship
and find the magic fountain. I do not know
whether he wanted only to get young himself,
or whether he wanted all the people in the
world to bathe, so that no one would ever grow
old and no one would ever die. It would have
been very strange, I think, if Ponce de Leon had
found the fountain. There would never have
been any old people any more, and your grand-
father would have been as young as you are.

THE NOBLE WHO BECAME A SLAVE

"..v."-.

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saw

Well, there wasn't a place in all the islands
of the West that Ponce de Leon did not visit to
find the magic fountain. Every day the old
man would put his hands under some little foun-
tain, and then watch to see whether his hair
would grow black and his legs strong again. It
never happened, and, for one, I do not believe
that there ever was such a magic fountain. Well,
one Easter morning, while sailing around looking
for islands, where the magic fountain might be
hidden by trees, Ponce de Leon saw a beautiful
new land, the most beautiful land he had ever
seen. There were wonderful green palms that
never died, and on the ground were flowers of all
colors, red and yellow and blue and purple.
The air was soft and warm, and high up in the
trees the birds sang so sweetly that it almost
made the old De Leon weep. "It is Paradise,"
he said; "here I shall surely find my youth."

He called the country Florida, which is the
name it still bears, and he looked everywhere
for the magic fountain, of which he had been
told by the Indian. But he did not find it at
that time, nor did he find it later, though he
came back again, with many men who wished
to make homes in Florida. The Indians were

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THE

MEN WHO FOUND AMERICA

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very unfriendly; they did not want the Spaniards
to land, so there was a battle between the
Spaniards and the Indians and De Leon was shot.
The arrow had been dipped in poison and the
wound got worse and worse, and in a short time
Ponce de Leon died.

So it happened that the old man who looked
for youth found death instead. Yet, to-day,
Florida is a beautiful land, where the flowers
still grow and the birds still sing, and many
people go there from all over our country to
bathe in the wonderful salt water and the warm
sunshine, and here they get health and strength,
though, of course, they do not get what Ponce
de Leon looked for — youth everlasting.

Perhaps the Spanish noble, Cabeza de Vaca,
thought of the poor Ponce de Leon when, so
many years after, he and his companions landed
in Florida. "What will happen to us?" he said
to himself. "Will we find what we want, gold
and a way to the Indies, or will we too die from
hunger and sickness and the poisoned arrows of
the Indians?"

When the Spaniards landed from their ships,
they found that the Indians were quite as
unfriendly as they had been to Ponce de Leon.

THE NOBLE W H O BECAME

AVE

So the Spanish noble, De Vaca, told the captain,
whose name was Narvaez, that he thought it
would be safer to stay near the ships. The
Indians had told Narvaez that there was gold in
the country towards the West, near the moun-
tains. Narvaez wanted gold right away, so he
and his men didn't listen to De Vaca, but began
their weary march inland.

Now, this march was much longer and harder
and more dangerous than any of the Spaniards
had thought when they started. There were no
roads or even paths, and they had to cut their
way through great forests, where the trees and
bushes grew so thick that you could hardly tell
where you were going. Often they lost their
way in swamps. Their feet sank into the water,
and they had to ask each other's help so that
they would not sink into the swamp and die.
The sun, too, was broiling hot, and the mos-
quitoes and insects bit them all day and all
night, so that often they cried out with pain and
could not sleep.

Besides, every day the Indians were more and
more unfriendly. This was the Spaniards' own
fault. They had burned some Indian chiefs,
whom they had found in a little village, and all

THE MEN WHO FOUND AMERICA

S3i«

the other Indians hated the Spaniards and thought
them very wicked. They called them white
devils. Now, the Indians knew of a good way
through the swamps and the forests, but they
would not tell the Spaniards, because of the
Indian chiefs whom the Spaniards had burned.
So Narvaez and De Vaca and the men who were
with them had to fight their way through the great
swamps. Some poor fellows died of sickness,
and all were hungry and tired. So you can well
believe that they were glad to reach at last a
little Indian village.

The Spaniards expected to find gold here, but
there was hardly any gold in all the village. They
did find a little corn and enough food to keep
them from dying; but even with this they were
little better off than before. The Indians were
their enemies, and whenever a Spaniard walked
away from the village he was sure to be killed
with an arrow. Even when the Spaniards led
their horses to water, they were shot at by the
Indians, who were hidden behind trees. At last
things became so bad that the Spaniards had to
go back to their boats by the sea. It was a hard
march. They could only get food from the
Indians by fighting for it, and many Spaniards

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THE NOBLE WHO BECAME

SLAVE

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■&&

were shot, and many others fell sick and died
from the bad water in the swamps. They had
to go on, because the Indians would kill any
who stayed behind. So they marched, and
marched, and marched, day after day, and day
after day, losing men all the time, until at last
they reached the great sea.

But it wasn't Tampa Bay, where they had left
their ships many weeks before, nor was the coast
like any they had ever seen before. There was
no life anywhere on all the great water, and there
was no human being on all the miles of hot,
white sand that stretched away as far as the eye
could see. The soldiers lost their courage.
"We shall never get home," they cried in
despair. "We shall die on this terrible sea-
coast," and some of the great, strong, bearded
men threw themselves on the sands and cried as
though their hearts would break.

Well, after a while they picked up courage.
No matter how bad things look, a brave man
never gives up hope. They knew that they were
hundreds of miles west of Tampa Bay, but they
remembered that there were some few Spaniards
living near the place where they were. So De
Vaca and the others made up their minds to

THE

MEN

WHO F O U N D AMERICA

:-r^i§.

"■^^^ '

build boats in which they might sail to the other
Spaniards. Well, it is not easy to build ships
when you have no sails, and no tools, and no
pitch, and no ropes; but with patience you can
do almost anything. So the Spaniards cut down
trees for wood, made rope out of the hair of
their horses' tails and manes, and used their shirts
for sails. Month after month they worked, liv-
ing on horse-meat and shell-fish and a little corn
which they took from the Indians.

At last the boats were finished and they sailed
away. Up and down the coast they went, always
hunting for the Spaniards who lived nearby,
and all the time things grew worse and worse
with them. They were hungry and sick and
frozen to the bone. For days the sun beat
down on them, burning their skin, and then the
cold shock gave them chills and fever. At last
a great storm came, that drove their boats apart
and threw them up against the rocks.

The boat on which De Vaca sailed landed on
a little island, and the little band of soldiers
would surely have died of hunger if the Indians
had not been very kind. The Indians built
large fires for the half-drowned men, and gave
them hot food and drink, and when some other

■p

;:;'j!i>K

THE NOBLE WHO BECAME A SLAVE

tOV

boats appeared like little specks far away in the
distance, they threw more wood on the fires so
that the smoke would rise in clouds and guide
these ships also to the shore.

Here the tired Spaniards stayed for many
months; but most of them did not live long.
One after another they died, until only De Vaca
and three others were alive. These four were
all who were left of the bold men who had
sailed for Florida a year before.

But the troubles of the brave De Vaca and
his three tired men were not yet over. They
could not stay long on the island with the good
Indians, so one fine morning they said good-by
to their new friends, and made their way to the
West. It is a great wonder to me that they did
not all die, for their troubles and dangers were
great. Sometimes the Indians were kind to
them, and gave them food and a place to sleep;
but often they were very cruel, and once they
kept De Vaca and his men locked up, and made
them work as slaves.

You can imagine, perhaps, how hard it was
for Cabeza de Vaca, who was a noble and a
great man in his own country, to have to be a
slave in a little Indian village. In Spain there

MEN WHO FOUND A M E R I C

were always people to wait on him, and when-
ever he wanted anything, he called and a servant
came to ask what he wanted. But here in the
little Indian village, where all the people were
half naked, he had to work in the fields and dig,
and cut wood and carry water, and do whatever
else his master told him. Yet, I wonder, did
De Vaca ever think of the thousands of Indians
who had been made slaves by the Spaniards?
Slavery is always wrong, and it was just as wrong
to have Indian slaves as to have black slaves, or
white slaves, or slaves of any kind.

So this great noble had to work for the
Indians, but it was not for long. In a short
time, the Indians saw that their slave was wiser
than they were; he could teach them many
things, and he could cure them when they were
sick. So they were good to him and treated
him as a chief, and after a while they let him
and his three men go free.

Now that De Vaca and his three men were
free, they started on their journey again. They
went on day after day, week after week, month
after month, and year after year. It was six
years, six long years, that they walked on and on
over deserts and thick forests, crossing deadly

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THE NOBLE WHO BECAME

SLAVE

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swamps and great, wide rivers. Often they had
nothing to eat but nuts and roots, and as their
clothes had worn out, they froze in winter and
almost burned in summer. Many a time they
wanted to lie down and die ; but, being brave men,
they never quite gave up hope. So they kept on.
Then one day, through the great forest they
caught sight of the sea, and they were so happy
that they wept tears of joy; and here they
found that they were among their own people
again. For the first time in six years they saw
white faces once more; for the first time in six
years they heard men speaking their own beauti-
ful language, the Spanish language, which they
loved so dearly.

You can well imagine how glad everybody was
to see them. The tired but happy Cabeza de
Vaca had to tell his story over and over again
— all the wonderful adventures he had had since
he landed in Tampa Bay, of the great rivers
and swamps he had crossed, and of the suffer-
ings he had passed through. And where do you
think he was? He was far to the West, way
out upon the Gulf of California, near the great
Pacific Ocean. Cabeza de Vaca had walked
across America.

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«fi»r- >r

THE MEN WHO FOUND AMERICA

It is true that De Vaca never found the things
he came to America to find; for not always
did men find gold and glory like Cortez and
Pizarro. But De Vaca was happy and satisfied.
When he sailed away back to his own home in
Spain, he had no gold to take with him, but he
was happy, happy to be with his own people
once more, happy that he no longer had to be a
slave to the Indians in America.

HOW DE SOTO CAME TO THE FATHER OF WATERS

*&*■>

z^&i

HOW DE SOTO CAME TO
THE FATHER OF WATERS

IN the olden days, while the bold Columbus
was sailing across the ocean, there lived in a
gray, mossy castle in Spain a young lad named
Ferdinand de Soto. This Ferdinand was a very
lonely boy. He had no father and no mother,
and there were no other boys with whom he
could play. All he could do was to watch the
birds flying in the green woods near the castle,
and listen to their sweet songs. Sometimes, in
the long, beautiful afternoons, he would go out
walking with his faithful dog, or ride on top of
his big black horse, that the boy had known and
loved ever since he was a little baby.

Ferdinand did not go to school. There
weren't many schools in those days and only the
very rich could go; and Ferdinand, though he
lived in a castle, was very poor. But he did
learn how to ride on a horse and how to fence
with a sword. His servant taught him these
things. This servant was a good, strong old
man, with eyes as black as coal and hair and

6SS

•<#tK

THE MEN WHO FOUND AMERICA

beard as white as snow. Soon the young Fer-
dinand learned so well that he could fence better
than his teacher, and as for horses, Ferdinand
could ride horses that the old man was afraid to
mount.

One day there came to the castle a very rich
nobleman, named Don Pedro. He looked at the
handsome young Ferdinand and was very much
pleased with him. Ferdinand was very polite
and had good manners, so at last Don Pedro
said to him, "You seem like a very fine lad.
How would you like to come to my palace and
learn to read and write and become a great sol-
dier like your father used to be?" "I should
like it very much," replied the young Ferdinand.
I should like to learn many things and then be
a soldier; and when I am a man I wish to go
to America like Columbus." "Very well," said
Don Pedro; "come with me and live in my
palace."

You can imagine how happy the young Fer-
dinand was to leave the gloomy old castle to go
with Don Pedro. And he was still happier
when he got there; for the rich Don Pedro
had a daughter named Isabella. This Isabella
was as beautiful as the day and as good as she

r*W

HOW DE SOTO CAME TO THE FATHER OF WATERS

saw

was beautiful. The two children liked each
other, and in the lonely afternoons they played
many games while the sun cast its long shadows
on the green grass. Ferdinand now had lessons.
He learned to read and to write; he went to a
great school where they taught him many won-
derful things, and every day he grew taller and
stronger, until at last his birthday came around
again and he was nineteen years old.

Then a strange thing happened. The young
Isabella, too, had grown up to be a beautiful girl,
with wonderful deep gray eyes, and red lips that
curved like a bow, and her hair was as black
as the darkest night. Ferdinand loved Isabella
very tenderly, and Isabella loved Ferdinand, and
they wanted to marry and live happily ever after-
wards. But Don Pedro was away in America
and they had to wait until he came back.

At last Don Pedro came home, and Ferdinand
went up to him and said, "Don Pedro, you have
been very good to me. You have brought me
up like your own son. Now I am a man and
I love your daughter, Isabella. May I have her
as my wife?"

Now, Don Pedro was a greedy man, and he
wanted his daughter to marry a great, rich lord,

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and not a poor young boy like Ferdinand. So
he said, "No, I will not let you marry my
daughter. You have taken my food, but you
may not take my child." So Ferdinand was
sad and did not know what to do, for he loved
Isabella very dearly; but he could not marry her
against her father's wishes.

Then Don Pedro thought of a very clever
plan. He said to himself, "If the young Fer-
dinand and the young Isabella live here in my
castle, their love will grow until it knows no
bounds; and perhaps some day when I am
away serving my King, these young people will
get married. That will never do. But if I can
get Ferdinand away, then Isabella will forget
him, and will marry a great, rich lord and live
in a beautiful, big castle."

So the clever Don Pedro said to Ferdinand,
"You have always wanted to be a soldier and go
to America like the great Christopher Columbus.
Now is your time. You are a man, and can
gain honor and gold for yourself, and new coun-
tries for your King. You must not think of
Isabella; you must think of America."

The words of the clever Don Pedro moved
the heart of the brave young lad. "You are

HOW DE SOTO CAME TO THE FATHER OF WATERS

right, Don Pedro," he answered; "I will go to
America."

I think that Ferdinand must have been very
sad when he had spoken these words; for little
did he know whether, in all his life, he would
ever again look upon the sweet, beautiful face of
Isabella. Perhaps on his way to America the
little ship would strike a rock or go down in a
storm, and Ferdinand would be drowned. Or
perhaps the Indians would kill him, or he would
die of a fever, or would be cast into prison, with
nothing to eat or drink but bread and water,
and the rats would squeak, and the day would be
as dark as the night. Perhaps he would be
thrown into such a prison by some wicked man
and never be set free again. And even if he
came back after many hard years and many great
perils, he might find that Isabella had married
and forgotten all about him; so you may well
believe that Ferdinand, brave young man as he
was, wept bitter tears when he said good-by to
the fair Isabella.

And yet Ferdinand was anxious to go. All
the brave young Spaniards wanted to go to
America to fight the Indians, to teach them
about God, to find gold for themselves and new

THE

■DOB

MEN

WHO FOUND

AMERICA

countries for the King. Every now and then
some young man would come back from
America with gold, and silver, and pearls, and
rubies, and beautiful, wonderful birds, and
strange things that no man had ever set eyes on
before; and many were the stories about the red
men who lived in the beautiful land of America.

Well, at last the ship was ready and Ferdinand
sailed away, and for fifteen long years he stayed
in America. I cannot begin to tell you of all
the wonderful sights he saw there, or of the
many bold deeds that he did. Of all the brave
men who had gone to America, none was braver
than Ferdinand de Soto. After a while he met
the Spanish General, Pizarro, who was going to
Peru to conquer that country. Pizarro told De
Soto about Peru and the Incas, of their wonder-
ful temples and palaces, and how rich they were
with all their gold and silver. "I am going to
Peru to conquer that country," he said to De
Soto, "and I want you to come with me because
you are such a brave man."

Now, when Pizarro said these words to De
Soto and told him of all the dangers he would
meet in that new land, the young Ferdinand was
not afraid. He loved danger as he loved the

■umnjitD

HOW DE SOTO CAME TO THE FATHER OF WATERS

beautiful Isabella whom he had left in Spain.
"I will go with you, Pizarro," said Ferdinand,
"and I will be a brave and true soldier." And
so, during all that great war against the Incas of
Peru, Ferdinand fought bravely by the side of
Pizarro, the wisest and the bravest of all the men
in that army.

When Peru was conquered, and after many
other great adventures, Ferdinand returned to
Spain. Fifteen years had passed since he had
left. Now he was no longer a poor boy, but a
rich and powerful man, and everybody respected
him because of his wise words and brave deeds.
You may be sure that Ferdinand was very happy
to see once more the beautiful country in which
he was born. However much you may travel,
you are always happy when at last you come back
to your own home. So it was with Ferdinand.
He almost cried with joy when he saw again
the old, mossy castle where he had played as a
boy. There were the same old trees, the same
long, dusty road where he used to ride upon his
great black horse; but most happy of all was
Ferdinand when he saw again the beautiful
Isabella. She was more lovely than ever. Her
father, the clever Don Pedro, was now dead, and

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during all of these long years the beautiful
Isabella had loved the young Ferdinand. She
had been very sad because Ferdinand was away,
but she never forgot him; and when the great
lords of Spain had come to her and asked her
to marry them, she always shook her head
and spoke sadly. "No, my good lord," she
answered; "I love the young Ferdinand de Soto
who fights for his King in the land of America.
I shall wait until he comes for me."

So they were married, and all the great lords
and ladies who were invited to the wedding said
they had never seen so handsome a couple.
There were plenty of cakes and wine for all the
people who came, and there was a table where
the poor could sit down and eat as much as they
wished. Everybody laughed and cried for joy.
Then Ferdinand took his beautiful wife to a great
palace in Seville, and there they lived so happily
that the days flew by like minutes, and even the
King envied them because they were so happy.

The brave Ferdinand was very good to his
beautiful wife. He bought for her all that her
heart could desire. So it happened that he
spent all the gold and silver that he had brought
with him from America. Then, one day, Fer-

HOW DE SOTO CAME TO THE FATHER OF WATERS

r^C'~

dinand said to his wife, "I shall go to America
again to bring you more gold and more silver
and all the beautiful things that are found in
that country." Ferdinand said this to make his
wife happy; but the beautiful Isabella was not
happy. "I was so sad when you went away the
last time," she said, " I cannot bear to have you
leave me again. Let me, I pray you, go with
you and share your dangers."

So the good Ferdinand de Soto kissed his
brave wife and told her she might go with him ;
and many young lords of Spain wanted to go also.
They all knew how bold and true and wise Fer-
dinand was; so the ships were filled with young
nobles, all dressed in bright-colored clothes.
After a long journey, the ships came to the
island of Hispaniola, where there were many
Spaniards. Here Ferdinand told Isabella to
wait for him. "There are many dangers where
I go," he said; " but soon I will come back with
gold and silver and all that the heart can desire."
Little did Ferdinand know when he kissed his
wife good-by that he would never again see her
in all this world. Boldly he sailed to the land
of Florida. Here he found many wonderful
things, but nowhere did he find the great mines

M E N

WHO FOUND AMERICA

of gold and silver that Cortez had seen in
Mexico and Pizarro in Peru. The Indians told
him that gold and silver could be found in the
great wild country to the West; so Ferdinand
and his little army marched toward the West.
Every day they moved further and further away
from their home, and further and further away
from the lonely Isabella, who waited on the
island. Everywhere they looked for gold, but
the Indians always pointed toward the West,
where the sun sets. Always they said to the
Spaniards, "Go West; go far West into the wild,
wild country and there you will find gold."

In their long, hard march, the brave Ferdi-
nand de Soto and his little army had many adven-
tures. Sometimes the Indians were friendly and
would sit down with the white men about the
fire and smoke their long pipes. This was a
sign among the Indians to show that they were
friends with the white men. But sometimes the
Indians were not friendly and fought with the
Spaniards. I do not blame these Indians for
fighting with De Soto. Before De Soto had
come to this land, there had been other Spaniards
there, and these men had been very, very cruel.
They had killed many Indians and thrown their

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HOW DE SOTO CAME TO THE FATHER OF WATERS

.■■:-"■

pretty little babies into the river, and one day
they took the Indian chief and cut his nose off.
Some of the Indians thought that all Spaniards
were cruel and wicked, and so they fought
against De Soto and killed many of his men.

Then other misfortunes befell De Soto. There
were many great rivers to cross and there were
no boats; so De Soto made canoes out of the
trunks of trees and moved his little band of
soldiers over on these. But sometimes the boats
were unsafe, and horses and men were drowned.
Then, too, many of the men died of fever
because they had to go through great swamps,
where no white men had ever been before, and
where you sank into the ground up. to your
waist. Sometimes there was not enough food,
and many of the men grew sick and died;
so the soldiers grew afraid and begged to be
taken home. But the bold De Soto said, "No;
we are all brave men and we must never turn
back."

Then there happened one of the greatest
things in all the world. De Soto had come to
America to find gold and he did not find it;
but he found what was much greater, a mighty
river. This river was the greatest in all

THE

WHO

FOUND

AMERICA

MEN

America. It was so large and great that the
Indians called it the Mississippi, which means
in their language the Father of Waters. This
river has become the great water way of
America; cities have grown upon it, boats have
gone up and down its wide waters, and more
good has come from it than from many barrels
of gold. And it was Ferdinand de Soto who
first found this river, who first came to the
Father of Waters.

When De Soto saw this Mississippi River,
there were no boats on it and no cities near it.
It was just a great, wide river, gleaming in the
sun, stretching out its wide arms toward the
north and the south. But De Soto was happy.
He loved the river as he loved the beautiful
Isabella, who waited for him so many, many
miles away. And now Ferdinand was willing
to turn back. The Indians were not at all
friendly, and his army was very little and very
weak. Many of the soldiers were sick from
the fever; so sadly De Soto turned his back on
the great river and started his march home.

But before he had gone many miles, the great
Ferdinand de Soto fell sick. Every day he
grew worse, and every day he longed to see his

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to the Father of Waters."

HOW DE SOTO CAME TO THE FATHER OF WATERS

afar

beautiful Isabella and the wonderful Mississippi
River that he had found. But the fever grew
worse and worse, and at last the brave Ferdinand
de Soto died.

The sad soldiers buried him in the forest and
then started homewards. But before they had
gone many steps, one of the soldiers, who was
very clever, thought of a plan. "If the Indians
find De Soto's grave," he said, "they will know
that our brave leader is dead. Then they will
no longer fear to attack us. Therefore, let us
bury him in the great river that he loved so well,
so that no man can find his grave." And this
they did. They took up his body and put it
into the hollow of a great, heavy tree, and in
the dead of night they placed it in the river and
let it sink. This was almost four hundred years
ago. Yet, perhaps, even to-day, at the bottom of
the great Mississippi River, there lies the body
of the brave Ferdinand de Soto, who, among
all white men, was the first to come to the Father
of Waters.

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THE MEN WHO FOUND AMERICA

^^«^^'^%jfel

The BOY WHO LOVED the SEA

MORE than three hundred years ago, in a
little town on the shores of the sea, there
lived an English lad whose name was Walter
Raleigh. This Walter was a very bright, happy
boy, active and brave. He loved all kinds of
sports. He loved to run and fight and play.
He loved to breathe in the cool, fresh air, as
every evening he ran along the lonely country
roads; but most of all he loved the sea. Every
day the young Walter could be found in the
blue water, swimming near the shore, or rowing
in a boat, or sailing before the wind. He loved
the sea, and was not afraid of it, even in the
stormiest weather.

Now, Walter was not the only English boy
who loved the sea. All the little English lads
loved it. The English at this time did not live
in great cities as they do to-day. Many of them,
like Walter Raleigh, lived in little towns and
villages right on the shores of the sea. They
could look at the water every day when it was
blue and quiet and the sky was clear, and also
when the sea was rough and angry and storms

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broke out from the clouds overhead. There
were many bold fishermen in those days, and
these fishermen would sometimes take the little
lads out with them in their boats; and so it
happened that at this time many of the English
boys knew a great deal about the sea and became
good sailors.

The young Walter used to listen to long
stories about the great English sailors who were
taking their ships to all the seas; but the stories
he loved most to hear were of two brave young
Englishmen, named Francis Drake and John
Hawkins. These sailors hated the Spaniards,
who were then the strongest and most cruel
people in the world. So these brave English
sailors used to fight against the cruel Spaniards
and lay in wait to capture their vessels and all
the gold and silver that was in them. Some-
times I think the English sailors were just as
cruel as the Spaniards with whom they fought;
but they were very brave, these English sailors
were, and when the young Walter heard about
them, he, too, wanted to go to sea and fight the
Spaniards and take their gold.

But the time had not yet come. The young
Walter was only fourteen years old, and he had

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THE MEN WHO FOUND AMERICA

much yet to learn. A boy should learn many
things before he becomes a man. So the young
Walter was sent to the great University of
Oxford, where he was taught a great many things.
He used to study out of big books, that were so
heavy that a boy could hardly carry them. It
was a very beautiful place, this Oxford, and
Walter met there many lads from all over Eng-
land. They told him wonderful stories about
the great men of England, the soldiers and
sailors, the poets and the great lords who lived
in London and saw the Queen every day, and
helped to rule the kingdom. Walter longed to
grow up to be a lord, so he, too, could see the
Queen and help to rule the kingdom.

Now, Walter loved to study; but, more than
anything else, he wanted to go out into the great
world and be a man. So at seventeen he left
the beautiful school at Oxford and went to
France, where a great war was going on. He
fought for six years, doing many brave acts and
becoming a great soldier. Then he went to
Holland and helped the people of that country
to fight against the Spaniards; and everywhere
he went the people loved him, because he was
so brave and handsome and witty.

THE

BOY

WHO

LOVED

THE

SEA

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But Raleigh loved the sea even more than he
loved fighting, and when he was twenty-six years
of age, he left the army and went on a ship to
America. He wanted to go to Newfoundland,
which is an island many miles north of this
country, because he thought he could sail
further and find a river or strait that would
lead right through America to the Pacific Ocean.
If he could find such a river or strait, then he
could sail right through America to the Indies,
and do what Columbus tried to do so many
years before.

Well, there isn't any such strait in all
America, and so Raleigh never could have found
it; but he did not even get the chance. The
Spaniards saw his little vessels and sailed after
him, and he lost one of his ships and his other
ships were damaged; so the brave Raleigh had
to come home again.

Then there happened a little thing that made
Walter Raleigh the most famous man in all
England. One day, while he was in London,
he saw the Queen walking along the street.
Now the Queen, whose name was Elizabeth, was
very proud and very fond of clothes. She had
over a thousand dresses, and many of these
a

THE

MEN

W H O

9SS

FOUND

B9BB

A M E R I C

were embroidered with beautiful jewels. I do
not know how many shoes and slippers and
silk stockings she had, but I do know that she
had very many. Now, just as Walter looked
up, he saw that the Queen stopped in front of a
muddy place in the street. She did not want to
get her new shoes wet. The great lords who
were with the Queen looked worried. They
did not know what to do; but young Walter
sprang forward, took off his handsome cloak,
the most beautiful cloak he had, and, kneeling
down before the queen, spread the cloak on the
muddy spot in the road, so that she could walk
on without getting her shoes dirty.

Well, the Queen was very much pleased. She
smiled at the handsome young man at her feet,
and, telling him to rise, asked, "What is your
name, young man?" "May it please your
majesty," he replied, bowing very low, "my
name is Walter Raleigh." "Well, Master
Raleigh," replied the Queen, "you have done a
very gracious act. Ask of me what you will
and you may have it."

Now, this was the way in which queens spoke
in those days when they were pleased with any-
thing you did ; and sometimes the man would

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ask for a suit of armor, and sometimes for a
horse, and sometimes for a hundred pieces of
gold. But Walter Raleigh asked for none of
these.

"May it please your majesty," he said, "if I
may have anything I wish, then I ask for the
cloak upon which your majesty has just deigned
to step." By this he meant that it was a great
honor for the Queen to walk on his cloak.

Now, Queen Elizabeth was very much sur-
prised.

"Why, Master Raleigh," she answered, "the
cloak is not mine to give; it is yours and has
always been yours."

"Not so," replied Walter Raleigh; "not so,
your majesty. The cloak was mine until your
royal foot touched it, but in that moment it
became yours. And this is what I ask of your
majesty, that you give to me my cloak that I
may always look on it and remember this day."

So the Queen gave Raleigh his cloak, but she
gave him many other things besides. She made
him a knight, which was something that all men
wanted to be, and she let him have lands and
gold and many beautiful things. She made it a
law that no man in all England could sell
mem

THE

MEN

WHO

FOUND

AMERICA

broadcloth or wines except only Walter Raleigh,
which made the young man even richer than
before.

Those were good days for Walter Raleigh, or,
as he was now called, Sir Walter Raleigh. He
was the greatest man in all England. His
clothes were the finest in the kingdom. Even
the band around his hat had pearls on it, and he
wore diamonds and rubies and beautiful feathers,
and the white ribbons that tied his shoes had
beautiful, gleaming jewels sewed all over them.
He even had a suit of armor that was made all
of silver. Indeed, he had so many things that
I cannot remember them all.

Of course, Raleigh loved to be a great lord
among the English and help to rule the king-
dom, but he loved the sea even more. "Now,
that I am rich," he said, "I wish to buy ships
and sail to America. There I can find a new
land for England, and in after years English-
men will bless the name of Walter Raleigh."

So Sir Walter Raleigh went to the Queen and
told her of his plan. "Yes," said the Queen,
"I shall be glad if you send your ships to
America and find new lands for England ; but
you cannot go yourself, Sir Walter. I want you

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" Walter sprang forward and spread his handsome cloak on the muddy spot.

THE

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to stay in England and help me rule the king-
dom." She said this because she was very fond
of Sir Walter, and was afraid he might die on
the long journey, or be killed by the Indians in
America. Now, the Queen's words made Sir
Walter very sad. He wanted to go with the
ships to the new land, because ever since he was
a little boy he had loved the sea; but he had
to do as the Queen said, so the ships sailed
without him.

Now these ships went to America and came
home again. The sailors brought back with
them a string of white, gleaming pearls, skins of
strange animals, and two Indians, to show Eng-
lishmen what red men looked like. They told
Sir Walter wonderful stories of the beauty of
the country, and when Sir Walter heard the
stories of the sailors, he wanted to go to this
new land more than ever; so the next year he
sent out more ships. Now, on these second
ships went one hundred brave men, who, when
they saw the new land, called it Virginia. The
Indians told Ralph Lane, the Governor of this
colony, many strange stories. They told him
of a beautiful city, back in the forest, where the
walls were made of pearl, and where there was

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THE MEN WHO

FOUND AMERICA

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gold and silver in the streets. Now, we know
that there was no such city; but the Governor
believed the Indians, and instead of planting
corn for the winter, he and his men searched
and searched for the walls of pearl. Everything
went badly with the little colony. There was
not enough food to eat, and many of the men
starved to death. The Indians, too, became
unfriendly, though at first they had been very
kind to the white men. I will tell you why
they changed. One day an Indian stole a silver
cup from an Englishman, and instead of punish-
ing the thief, the white men burned all the corn
that all the Indians had planted, and set fire to
all their houses, till the whole village was in
ashes; so the poor Indians had nothing to eat,
and no place to sleep, and I, for one, don't
blame them for not being friendly to the white
men.

Every day things grew worse, and at last the
little band of Englishmen went back to their own
country. They had not found gold or silver,
but they had found what was much better,
tobacco, potatoes and corn. These things had
never been known in England before, though
• to-day all the people

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as the Americans do. Sir Walter himself liked
tobacco very much, and, being a grown man, he
used to smoke every day out of a great, long
pipe. One day a very funny thing happened.
He had hired a new servant, a man who had
never seen tobacco in all his life. Sir Walter
sent him out to bring in a great pitcher of beer,
and when he came back he saw smoke coming
out of his master's mouth and nose, and he
thought that he must be on fire. So what do
you think he did? He poured the pitcher of
beer over Sir Walter's head to put out the fire.
Of course the fire did not go out, but all of Sir
Walter's clothes were spoiled; but Sir Walter
had more clothes, and so he only laughed.

The ships which Sir Walter had sent to
America all came back, but he did not lose hope,
and after a while he sent out a third colony to
the new land. In this colony there were one
hundred and fifty men, seventeen women, and
eleven little children, and Captain John White
was their Governor. But the people of this
colony, too, were cruel to the Indians, and so,
of course, the Indians were unfriendly to them.

After a little while all their food gave out, and
as the Indians would not give them corn, they

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asked Captain White to go to England and come
back with more food. Now, Captain White did
not want to go on this long journey. His little
granddaughter, the first English child ever born
in America, was only a few weeks old, and Cap-
tain White didn't wish to leave her; but if he
did not go back, the people would die of hun-
ger. So one fine day he set sail for England.

Now, at this time, there was a great war
going on in England against the Spaniards, and
all English ships had to be used in the fight;
so Captain White's vessels were taken from him,
and he could not go back to his little grand-
daughter, Virginia Dare, nor to the men and
women and children he had left in Virginia. It
was three years before he could get ships to cross
the great ocean, and when he did make the long
journey, the people he had left so long ago had
all been lost. What became of them no man
ever knew. Perhaps they died of hunger or
were killed by the Indians. It was all so many,
many years ago, and the people that were alive
then are now all dead; so we shall never know
what did become of the little band whom Sir
Walter Raleigh sent to America, or of the dear
little baby, Virginia Dare.

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100

THE BOY

WHO

LOVED

THE

SEA

After a few years, Raleigh, who still loved the
sea, got the Queen to let him leave England.
This made him very happy, and, buying some
ships, he sailed across the ocean to South
America. Here he landed in a country called
Guiana, not a rich country, but where there were
many Indians. Of course, these Indians told
him wonderful stories, and, of course, these
stories were not true. A tribe of Indians, they
said, who lived up the river, were so rich that
they sprinkled gold dust on their bodies; and
back in the forest were other tribes who had
eyes in their shoulders and mouths in their chests.
Raleigh believed these foolish stories, because in
those days people were not so wise as they are
to-day, and so he sailed up the great river in
search of these riches.

Well, as there was no gold or wonderful city,
of course, Sir Walter Raleigh could not find
them, though he hunted a long time, and so,
after a few months, he went back to England a
very sad man.

Now, as Sir Walter Raleigh grew older, this
is what happened. Queen Elizabeth, as queens
sometimes do, grew tired of her friend, and one
day poor Sir Walter was thrown into prison.

THE MEN WHO FOUND AMERICA

Of course, the Queen let him out again, but, by
this time, everyone had turned against him.
Now, many men hated Sir Walter because of
his great pride; so, when Queen Elizabeth died,
and a new King, King James, ruled over Eng-
land, the King heard many stories against Sir
Walter. He believed these stories, and so, for
the second time, Sir Walter was put in prison.
Here he stayed for twelve sad years. That
was a long time to stay in prison; but, I sup-
pose, Sir Walter would have been there even
longer had he not thought of a plan by which
to get out.

You see, Sir Walter knew that King James
was very fond of gold; so he sent a man to
the King to say, "In South America is much
gold. If your majesty will let me out of prison,
I will go to that country, and after a short time
will return to England with my ships full of
gold." This plan pleased King James very
much, so he let Sir Walter out of prison, and
gave him ships, and sent him to South America.

But we cannot always do what we promise
to do; and though Sir Walter tried very hard, he
could not find any gold in South America.
Instead, he became very sick, and some great

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THE BOY WHO LOVED THE SEA

mm
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mm

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Spanish vessels, seeing how small his ships
were, chased him, and forced him to return
home. Poor Sir Walter Raleigh! — you may well
believe that he was sad at the thought of meet-
ing his angry King.

And the King was angry when he found that
Sir Walter had not brought the promised gold.
He threw him into prison, and then a little later
ordered his head to be cut off. By this you see
how very angry the King was.

Now, Sir Walter was always brave. He was
brave as a little boy, brave as a soldier, and brave
when he came to die. Touching the edge of
the axe that was to cut off his head, he said,
"This is a sharp medicine, but a sound cure for
all diseases." By this he meant that after death
his troubles would all be over.

And so they were. Though the cruel King
James cut off the head of this brave man, he
could not make people forget him. Even to-day
we remember Sir Walter Raleigh. We have a
city named Raleigh in memory of him, and in
all parts of our country the children are told of
the brave little English boy who loved the sea.

103

THE MEN WHO FOUND AMERICA

^M^JU^^^st^

THE LITTLE RED PRINCESS
OF THE FOREST

THIS is the story of a princess — not a fairy
princess with golden locks and long, silken
gowns, but a real princess. You might have
called her a savage if you had seen her running
barefooted about in the forest, because she was
just a little, black-haired Indian girl, who played
with other little Indians in the woods of Vir-
ginia. Yet this little girl was a princess and
her father was a king.

Now, the name of this princess was Pocahon-
tas. It is a large name for such a little girl;
and yet, though it is three hundred years since she
lived, no one has forgotten her name. No one
has forgotten the story of the beautiful red prin-
cess who lived in Virginia, and this is the
reason why:

In those days Virginia was very different from
what it is to-day. There were no cities, and rail-
roads, and houses, and street cars; no theatres,
or parks, or schools. There were no white
people there at all. It was all a wild country,

THE LITTLE RED PRINCESS OF THE FOREST

with great rivers, and forests where no roads led,
and all the people — the men and women, the
little boys and girls, even the tiny, dear little
babies — were Indians.

Well, as the years went on, little Pocahontas
had her twelfth birthday. She was so beautiful,
and so very good and kind, that all the Indians
loved her. The women embroidered her skirts
with bright-colored porcupine quills, and with
feathers and beads, and the men brought her
presents of beautiful birds and little gray squir-
rels which they trapped in the forest. But the
King, her father, loved her most. Whenever he
came back from a journey, his first question was
always, "Where is Pocahontas?" And then he
patted her on the head and gave her some shells
which the Indians used for money. There was
nothing in the world that the King would not
do for his little daughter.

Now, Pocahontas had never seen a white man.
She thought that all men were red like her
father and the other brave Indians with whom
she lived. You see, there never had been any
white men in her part of the country. The
brave, cruel Spaniards had gone to Cuba and
Florida and Mexico and countries to the south,

—

■ateBfamaoi

THE

MEN

WHO FOUND AMERICA

•M ^sMfhSm^i^k^A

and the French explorers, who were very brave
too, had gone north to Canada and to the great
St. Lawrence River. The English, to be sure,
had sent men to Virginia, but they had only
looked around the coast and had not gone into
the forest. So Pocahontas and her father, King
Powhatan, had never seen a white man in all
their lives.

But one day the soldiers of the King brought
into the village a prisoner, whose hands and feet
were tied with thongs. This prisoner was a tall
man, with light hair and blue eyes, and, what
was even more wonderful, with skin as white as
milk. The Indians shook their tomahawks in
front of his face, and made a motion with their
long knives as though they were going to cut off
his head, but the man only laughed and he did
not show any fear. Now, the Indians like a
brave man, and when their prisoner laughed at
their knives, they thought he must be a very
brave man indeed. And little Pocahontas, who
was watching from the door of her father's wig-
wam, which is the Indian name for a little tent,
thought him brave too. She liked this white
man, who was not afraid of the tomahawks of
the bravest warriors, and she was sorry when she

UliiUMt

106

THE LITTLE RED PRINCESS OF THE FOREST

-' p3S

S^W

saw how the thongs of deer-skin, with which he
was bound, cut into his white skin; so she
asked her father to have the Indians unbind their
prisoner, and this they did.

Now, the name of this white man who laughed
at the tomahawks was Captain John Smith. He
was one of the bravest of all the brave English-
men who came to America so long ago. He
had been a soldier in England, and when he was
very young had gone to fight against the Turks,
who were making war on the Christians. The
young John Smith was so very brave in this war
that when the English wanted men to win the
new country of Virginia for their good King
James, they chose him for their captain.

I do not think that anybody ever had more
trouble or ran into more danger than did this
brave gentleman. It was not easy to cross the
ocean in those days. The little sail-boats were
often wrecked, and then there were cruel pirates
who would catch sailors and throw them into
the sea. And even when John Smith and his
little band of men sailed up the James River in
Virginia, and made the new city of Jamestown,
their troubles were not over. They did not have
enough to eat, and it was hard to get any food

THE MEN WHO FOUND AMERICA

r^T

^rijl

from the unfriendly Indians. Besides, the men
who had come with Captain Smith were not
used to work. They wanted to find gold and
silver and become rich right away, and they did
not want to plant corn, and build houses, and
barns, and forts.

So you may well believe that Captain Smith
had enough trouble. When his people did not
have food and were hungry, and when some of
them fell sick and died, as they did, then they
all complained. They even cried to go home
to England. They had much trouble with the
Indians, too; and at last, as I told you before,
Captain John Smith and some of his men were
captured, and Smith was bound and taken to
King Powhatan's village. So you can well
believe that poor John Smith was very happy
when, to please Pocahontas, the King ordered
him to be untied.

Now, the Indians were curious to know all
about the white men. They spent long hours
in front of their wigwams listening to the
strange stories of Captain Smith. He wrote a
few words on a sheet of paper, and when the
Indians saw how the white men in Jamestown
could read these little black marks on the paper,

,£r?f

108

iiiiimiitH

THE LITTLE RED PRINCESS

OF THE FOREST

they were filled with wonder, for the Indians
had no schools, and could not read or write.
"It is strange," they said, "our prisoner can
talk to a man a hundred miles away. He must
be a great chief and a friend of the gods."
Then Captain Smith showed the Indians his
compass. He told them that with this little
needle he could never be lost in the forest; even
where the woods were dense, he could find his
way back to the camp-fire. Now, you and I
know that the needle of a compass points always
to the north; but the Indians did not know this,
and they thought it was magic that told Captain
John Smith the way. So they grew afraid of
this white man; but Pocahontas was not afraid.
The days passed, till one morning the King,
Powhatan, called his warriors together to see
what they wished to do with their captive. They
all sat around a great camp-fire, and each man
smoked his long pipe. Pocahontas was not
there, because no woman was allowed at these
meetings; but you may be sure that she was
very anxious to hear what they would do with
the white man. After a while, one of the Indian
chiefs — he was a very old man, with a great scar
running across his forehead — spoke:
m

■■->'■■,

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109

MEN WHO FOUND AMERICA

[^'iindmsM'

"I know it is the custom of our tribe, oh,
King Powhatan, to kill the men who are taken
in battle; but this man is not like other men.
He is brave; he can talk to his friends a hundred
miles away; he speaks with magic to the stars.
So I say send him back to his people."

When the man with the scar had finished
speaking, there was a low murmur, which showed
that many of the Indians were pleased. But
there were others who did not like Captain
Smith and were afraid to keep him alive. A
little old man, who was very thin, and had a
very squeaky voice, arose and spoke:

"Oh, King Powhatan, it is not safe to let this
man live. He is the friend of the devils, or
how else could he talk with the stars, or by little
marks speak to his friends a hundred miles away?
Besides, it is the custom of our tribe that we
kill all prisoners. Therefore, I say, oh, King,
let the white man die."

And so it was agreed. I think that in his
heart the good King Powhatan would have liked
to save Captain Smith, but he would not go
against the wishes of his chiefs. You may well
believe that Pocahontas was very sad when she
heard that her friend must die. During the

110

THE LITTLE RED PRINCESS OF THE FORE

- V-

long summer days, when he had been a prisoner
in the village, she had grown very fond of him.
He had told her wonderful stories of England,
the great country across the sea, and of the
little white boys and girls who lived there, and
of the schools they went to and the games they
played; and now the man who had been so
kind to her must die a cruel death, far from the
country he loved.

All day she walked in the forest, trying to
think of some plan by which she could save his
life; but when night came and she returned
sadly to camp, she had not yet thought of a plan.
Now, as she neared the village, she met a young
brave dressed in his war-paint. "Hurry, oh
Princess," he said, "for the white man is to die
at sundown."

Poor Pocahontas! She ran even faster than
the young brave, and reached her father's wig-
wam just in time to see John Smith, bound
hand and foot, stretched on the ground, his head
resting on a big, flat stone. All the Indians
made way for the Princess as she pushed her way
to the front, and then, as a warrior raised a
great club to dash out the Englishman's brains,
she fell on her knees and threw her arms around

111

MEN

WHO

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A M E R I C

i£

his neck. If the club fell on Captain Smith, it
must kill her too. From her knees she begged
her father, the King, to give to her the life of
the white man.

Powhatan and all the Indian chiefs loved a
brave act. They looked at the little girl kneel-
ing before them, ready to die to save her white
friend. So the King said, " Let the white man
go free." And the Indians all grunted, which
meant that they, too, were really glad.

So John Smith rose from the ground a free
man, and was sent with twelve Indians back to
Jamestown. But this was not the only time that
the little Red Princess saved the life of her
friend. The Jamestown settlement was in dan-
ger of attacks by bad Indians, and more than
once Pocahontas came through the great forest
at night to warn Captain Smith that his enemies
were coming. Then, too, she asked her father,
the King, to give corn to the English, and often
the little village would have starved but for the
Little Red Princess of the Forest, who sent them
corn.

One day, when Pocahontas came to James-
town, she found that Captain Smith had gone
back to England to be cured of a wound. This

112

THE LITTLE RED PRINCESS OF THE FOREST

made her very sad, but she still went often to
Jamestown to hear news of her friend. At last
one day she was told that he was dead. After
that the Little Red Princess stayed in the forest.
She did not go then very often to the English vil-
lage, though she still sent presents of corn to
the white people.

But John Smith was not dead, and Pocahon-
tas was to meet her good friend once more.
Not in the great, silent forests was she to see
him, nor yet in the little city of Jamestown, but
in England, far across the sea. And this is how
the Little Red Princess of the Forest happened
to go to England.

In the village of Jamestown there lived a
young Englishman named John Rolfe. Now
Rolfe was not a prince, and in stories only the
prince can marry the princess; but a real red
princess is different from a fairy one, and so,
after some years, Pocahontas and John Rolfe
were married.

The wedding was in the little church at
Jamestown, because Pocahontas had become a
Christian, and you may well believe that all the
good Indians came to see their beautiful prin-
cess married.

THE

MEN

WHO

FOUND

A M E R I C

Well, after some time, John Rolfe and his
young wife crossed the ocean to England, and
thus it was that in the great city of London
Pocahontas met her old friend, John Smith, once
more. You may well believe that she was glad
to see him again after so many years, and that
they had many happy times together. It soon
happened that everyone in London was talking
about Pocahontas. The London people had
never seen a red princess before, especially a
princess who had done so many brave deeds, and
saved the lives of so many Englishmen. So all
London wished to honor her. The King and
the Queen sent for Pocahontas, and she was often
at their court, where all the great lords and
ladies loved her and gave her beautiful presents.

But at last the time came for John Rolfe to
go back to Jamestown. Pocahontas was very
sad at the thought of leaving England and all
her kind English friends, and she was sad, too,
because her little son, who had been born in
England, must take the long, rough journey.
But their plans were all made, and the good ship
was ready to sail.

Then it was, at the last moment, that poor
Pocahontas was taken ill. All the great doctors

hliisfJH!

114

THE LITTLE RED PRINCESS OF THE FOREST

.-.■■ :•.■'■'■

r&Sq

of London came to see her, but their medicines
were of no use, and, after a few days of suffer-
ing, she died. John Rolfe buried her in Eng-
land, among the white people there; but I like
to think of her best in the great, silent woods of
Virginia, where, for so long, she had lived with
her Indian tribe, and where she was called Poca-
hontas, the Little Red Princess of the Forest.

n'z !v

115

THE MEN WHO FOUND AMERICA

ii^:

THE ENGLISHMAN WHO
SAILED FOR THE DUTCH

THIS is the story of the man who started
New York, the greatest city in all America.
It all happened three hundred years ago, at a
time when Sir Walter Raleigh was still in prison,
and when the Little Red Princess of the Forest,
way down in Virginia, was saving the life of
Captain John Smith. And this is the way it
happened:

In a little English village there lived a boy
named Henry Hudson. This boy, like so many
other English lads, loved the sea, and he always
wanted to be a sailor. There were many games
that Henry could play, but he was never really
happy except when he was out on the ocean
sailing his boat, and learning how to keep it
safe in the wind and storm. He used to watch
the rough fishermen as they steered their boats
and cared for their sails in the rough weather,
and soon there was nothing about a boat that the
young Henry did not know just as well as a
man.

THE ENGLISHMAN WHO SAILED FOR THE DUTCH

Well, while Henry was still a boy, he went
to sea to learn more about the great ocean. He
did not run away secretly, but he went to the
captain of a vessel and told him that he would
work as a sailor for a few years without any pay,
so that he could learn all about boats. The cap-
tain looked the young Henry over from head to
foot, and he thought to himself, "Here is a fine,
strong lad. He will make a good sailor." So
he said to Henry, "You stay with me until you
are twenty-one, and I will teach you everything
about a ship and make a good sailor out of
you."

So Henry Hudson stayed with the captain,
and every day he learned more about the ways
of the sea and how to handle a boat. He
studied in books, too, and soon knew all about
the seas of the world, and all the countries that
any white man had ever visited. He was now a
captain of a ship himself, and everybody was
glad to sail on his boat, because they knew that
Henry Hudson was a brave sailor, and was not
afraid even in the roughest sea.

In those days there were great companies who
sent out ships to all parts of the world to trade
with the different nations. In England there

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THE

MEN

WHO FOUND AMERICA

;'•■-■■■.

was a company of this kind, called the Muscovy
Company. Now, this company heard about the
wise captain, Henry Hudson, and they wanted
him to sail a ship for them and find out new
countries, and sell English goods to the strange
people he met in the new lands; so Hudson
made several voyages for them. He sailed far
north, and every day the weather got colder and
colder; for, as everybody knows, if you go
south it gets warmer, and if you go north it
gets colder. Well, after a while it got so cold
that the sailors almost froze. The ropes of the
ships and even the sails were covered with ice,
and in the sea the sailors saw great floating
mountains of frozen snow. Now, these moun-
tains are called icebergs, and they are very
beautiful, especially when the sun shines upon
them, and the white snow glistens, and the clear
ice turns a wonderful shade of green.

But the icebergs, although very beautiful, are
also very dangerous. They float around in the
sea, and if they strike a ship, then that ship is
broken to pieces the way a nut is crushed in a
nut-cracker. So every day the voyage in the
north became more dangerous, and some of
Hudson's men wanted to go home; but their

118

THE ENGLISHMAN WHO SAILED FOR THE DUTCH

■ ■

SSW

captain would not return. "I will not go back,"
he said, "until I have done what I was sent to
do," and he kept on his voyage. So when
Henry Hudson reached England, he had sailed
further north than any man had sailed in all the
world up to that time.

Now, when the people of Europe heard of
how Hudson had sailed further north than any-
body in all the world, they all wanted him to
sail their ships. Holland, at this time, was a
country of sailors, and here, too, was a company
like the Muscovy Company, only it was called
the Dutch East India Company. Well, the men
who owned this company were always looking
for brave captains; so, when they heard of
Henry Hudson, they sent for him and said, "We
are all Dutchmen and you are an Englishman;
but, as you are a brave and a wise sailor, we
want you to sail our ships for us." And they
gave him money, and sent him off in a ship
called the Half Moon, with twenty sailors, some
of them Englishmen and some Dutchmen; and
thus it was that the bold Englishman, Henry
Hudson, sailed for the Dutch.

Again Hudson sailed towards the north, but
this time it was colder even than before, and the

THE

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W H O

FOUND

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sea was so full of ice that his sailors grew afraid,
even more afraid than his first sailors had been.
You see the ice was really very, very dangerous.
If a boat got shut in the ice, you could not
move it, no matter how hard you tried; and if
it got caught between two great icebergs, it was
squeezed until its masts and sides were broken
to pieces. So I am not surprised that the sailors
grew frightened, for I should have been fright-
ened if I were there, and I think you would have
been frightened too. And they were frightened.
They said they would throw Hudson overboard
unless he steered south; so Hudson had to tell
the pilot to turn the boat, and he sailed south
along the coast of America.

Now, I have told you before how in those days
all sailors believed in a short cut between the
Atlantic Ocean and the Pacific Ocean; so it is
not strange that Hudson believed in this short
cut, too, and wanted to find it. Besides, Captain
Smith, who was a friend of Hudson, had told
him that there was such a short cut. The name
that was given to this short cut was the North-
west Passage, although nobody had ever seen it,
and, in truth, there wasn't any to see. Well, as
Hudson was sailing along the coast, he came to

UlUUllttt

" Henry Hudson got many furs from the Indians and made them all his friends

THE ENGLISHMAN WHO SAILED FOR THE DUTCH

.■'-:-

■■maoBH

a great stream, which he thought must be the
great Northwest Passage that all brave sailors
were in search of; so he turned his boat and
sailed up the river, which was really the Hudson
River, the river that flows through the State of
New York, and does not go anywhere near the
Pacific Ocean. The water was clear and fresh,
and the longer Hudson sailed, the shallower it
became, until, after he had gone about a hundred
miles, his boat could go no further, so he had to
turn around once more and sail back. His
men landed on the beautiful green banks of the
river and rested from their hard journey.

So it was that the Hudson River was found by
Henry Hudson, and the great city of New York
was founded by Dutchmen. You see, though
Henry Hudson was born in England, he sailed
for the Dutch, and that gave the Dutch the right
to all the land he found. Well, they liked this
river, these home-loving Dutchmen, and they
liked, too, its beautiful harbor, so they sent out
from Holland ships with people to build houses
and forts and trading stores for the Indians. Here
they also gave the Indians hatchets and knives
and little glass beads of many colors, and got
from the red men soft, beautiful furs; and

itep

121

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WHO FOUND AMERICA

i^.

soon there was a little village here, which the
Dutch called New Amsterdam, after their own
city of Amsterdam in Holland. For over fifty
years they held this little city, and then the Eng-
lish came and took it from them, and called it
New York. And this is its name to-day, the
name of the greatest city in all America, the city
built upon the land which Henry Hudson found.

Let us return to Henry Hudson. He soon
saw that this beautiful stream was nothing but a
river, and not a short cut to the Pacific at all.
He was sorry, of course; but anyway, he did a
great deal. He got many furs from the Indians
and made them all his friends. You see the
Indians liked Hudson because he was good to
them. He did not treat them cruelly as the
Spaniards had done, and he did not try to rob
them, or murder them, or make slaves of them;
and the Indians never forgot this kindness, and
from that time on they were friendly to all the
Dutch who came to that part of the country.

At first the Indians did not know what to say
or do to Hudson and the white men. Like the
other Indians of our stories, they had never seen
a ship or a white man before. Some of them
thought that the ship was a great fish or an

THE ENGLISHMAN WHO SAILED FOR THE DUTCH

'. ■■■:,

•7-KI

animal, and still others believed that it was a
strange, new house that floated on the water.
As for Hudson, they thought he was the Mani-
tou, or Great Spirit, who was the god of the
Indians, and they worshipped him in a very
queer way. Gathering in a great circle, they
danced around him all their queer Indian dances,
because, being a great spirit, they thought that
their dancing would please him.

Then Henry Hudson gave the Indians axes
and shoes and stockings, but the red men did
not know what to do with the gifts. They
thought the heads of the axes and the shoes
must be ornaments to be worn about the neck,
and the stockings they used to put tobacco in
and they hung them at their belts. Now, I think
that shoes and stockings were very foolish gifts
to make to the Indians, because everybody knows
that they always wear mocassins; but the axes
were a very sensible present. The Indians were
pleased with these axes. They cut down trees
and chopped wood for their fires, much more
easily than before, when they had used their big
hunting knives.

Well, the Indians certainly did like Hudson
and Hudson liked the Indians; so one day the

123

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chief invited him in to dinner. It would not
have been polite to refuse this invitation. You
see, Hudson could not say that he had a "pre-
vious engagement," which is the way some
people have of making excuses when they do
not want to go anywhere. Anyway, Hudson
really wanted to go. When he came to the wig-
wam, he found the chief seated on a mat on the
ground. Hudson looked around for a chair; but,
as there was none, he sat down on a mat too,
and waited for what would come next. Then
the food was served. It was in two big wooden
bowls and of only one kind — a sort of stew,
made up of pigeons and dog cooked together.
Now, a dog isn't a very good thing to eat, at
least we don't think it is; but the Indians thought
this a very fine feast. Well, Hudson was polite,
and he had such a good time at the dinner that
the Indians were sorry when he sailed away.

I think that Henry Hudson wanted to come
back again to the friendly Indians; but when he
reached Europe, the English kept his vessel and
made him stay in England. Hudson wanted to
sail again for the Dutch, but his own people said,
"No; you must sail for us. You must not
find new lands for any country but England."

luniuitK

124

THE ENGLISHMAN WHO SAILED FOR THE DUTCH

* - V.'.Sl

■afca*!

So the next year the brave Hudson sailed once
more, and this time he sailed on an English
ship. He took with him his own son, a young
lad, and a man named Henry Green, and also a
good many sailors. You will hear of this Henry
Green again before this story is ended.

Far north Hudson steered the little vessel,
and soon he came to a great bay which no white
man had ever seen before, and which was after-
wards called Hudson's Bay, because Hudson
found it. Here it was very cold indeed, and
every day it grew colder. The ice froze around
the vessel, and for eight months the little ship
could not move an inch. Food got scarce, and
then, as always happens, the men were afraid of
starving and longed to get home. As soon as the
ice began to melt even a little, they begged Hud-
son to go back to England. " Do not stay in this
cold land," they said, "where we shall surely
freeze and starve to death." But Hudson would
not do this. He believed that at last he was
in the Northwest Passage, and would soon find
the Pacific Ocean. "Be brave," he said, "for
this ship shall not return to England until I find
out about this bay." Perhaps these words of
Hudson would have kept the men quiet if it had

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not been for the wicked Henry Green. Hudson
had always been friendly to Green, but this
wicked man was not grateful. Night and day
he talked to the men until he got them to turn
against their good captain. And they did turn
against him in this way.

Hand and foot both Henry Hudson and his
son were tied so tight that they could not get
loose, and then, with seven sick men, they were
put in a little boat and turned adrift in the great
sea, while the wicked Henry Green and the other
men sailed home to England. When they reached
home, I am glad to say, these wicked men were
all punished. They were put in prison, and a
ship was sent to Hudson Bay to look for the
brave Henry Hudson; but he was not found,
and to this day no one knows what became of
the little boat and of good Captain Hudson.

So I suppose that, left alone without food, he
died there in the great, frozen sea. But who
knows? There were many simple Dutch people
who lived near New York, in the Catskill Moun-
tains, who never believed that Hudson was dead.
Whenever it thundered in the hills, these old
men used to say, "Henry Hudson and his men
are playing ninepins in the mountains."

$MmWm£lmar.

126

THE FATHER OF NEW FRANCE

SSW

«>»-

7^ FATHER */ NEW FRANCE

ABOUT three hundred years ago, there lived
. in France a man who wanted to find a new
country. He loved France, its green fields and
its cool forests, its rivers and quiet country roads,
its cottages and its beautiful palaces; but what
this man wanted was a New France, a country
where Frenchmen could go and speak their own
language and meet other Frenchmen.

This man's name was Samuel Champlain.
Even as a little boy, when he played with other
lads in the fields, he had this one plan — to find a
new country for France. He knew that he could
find this country in America, because America
was so big; so he asked everybody he met to
tell him what they knew about the great wild
country beyond the sea.

He asked questions about the lakes of
America, its rivers, its great forests and its wide
plains. He asked questions about its gold and
silver, its mines and fisheries, and the vegetables
and fruits, and everything that grew there.

Now, in the little town in which Champlain
grew up, there lived some fishermen who had

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127

THE

M E N

WHO FOUND AMERICA

Eiifflfe

been to America. They had not been in the
southern lands, like Mexico, Florida and Peru,
where the Spaniards had gone for gold. The
Spaniards did not like the French, and they
would not let a Frenchman live in the countries
that belonged to them; so these bold fishermen
of France sailed further north. They used to
start in the first warm days of spring, in their
little fishing boats, and sail all the way across
the ocean to America. Here, in the quiet, silent
waters, off the coasts of Maine and Newfound-
land, they would fish all summer, and when the
weather got cold, they would sail back with their
fish to their little homes in France.

They were very brave men, I can tell you,
these French fishermen. Sometime one of them
would get caught in a storm, and his little
boat would go down to the bottom of the cold
sea. Then a poor woman in France would sit
by the window waiting for her husband to return
— waiting, waiting, waiting. And sometimes
these fishermen would land on the shore in
America, or sail their boats up the rivers. They
told Champlain of the wonderful sights they had
seen; of the wide rivers rushing down from the
north; of the deep quiet of the beautiful forests;

THE FATHER OF

N E W

FRANCE

■ ?;0

of the tall spruce and pine trees; of the clean,
cold waters of the little lakes. They told how
the naked Indians went about in light canoes,
made of the bark of trees; how these Indians
would carry their canoes on their backs from
river to river and from lake to lake. They told
Champlain of the beautiful brown and white
furs that the Indians had — furs so soft and warm
that any lady in France, even the Queen herself,
would be happy to wear them.

When Champlain had heard all these stories,
he became more eager than ever to make a new
France in America. This cold country of the
lakes and forests did not have gold and silver
mines; but, after all, thought Champlain, "gold
and silver are not the only things in the world."
The Frenchmen who would live in this New
France could get fish from the rivers, beautiful
woods from the forests, and soft, warm furs from
the Indians. Champlain dreamed of the time
when all this country would be filled with
Frenchmen, living in beautiful new cities, and
loving and obeying the King of France.

Now4 Champlain was just the man to find a
new country. He was very wise, and very, very
brave. Of all the men who went to America,

;Ay@N

THE MEN WHO FOUND AMERICA

Spaniards and Frenchmen, Dutchmen and Eng-
lishmen, I do not think there was anyone braver
than Champlain. When he was still very young,
he had sailed in the French ships and had learned
to be a good sailor and a plucky soldier. He
had fought in many battles for his King, and no
one could ever say that Samuel Champlain was
a coward.

Then later, after he had left the army, Cham-
plain went to the West Indies and to Mexico.
Here he saw the lands that Columbus had found,
the lands that Cortez had conquered, and he
watched all that the Spaniards were doing in
these soft, warm lands to the south.

But as I told you, the bold Champlain wished
to find his new country, not in the warm lands
to the south, but in the cold countries to the
north. So, after a while, he joined a little band
of Frenchmen who were going to the great
country which is now called Canada. Now, these
Frenchmen with whom Champlain went were
good, kind men. They did not kill the Indians
nor rob them, as, I am sorry to say, so many
other white men did, but they loved the Indians.
There was one man among them who was very,
very kind. His name was Poutrincourt. He

umuii*

THE FATHER OF NEW

FRANCE

had been a great lord in his own country, but
he did not want to go back to his beautiful
France. He lived peacefully and happily with
the Indians, taught them new ways of farming
and many other things of which they had never
heard before. And the Indians loved the French
lord as they did their own father. Even the little
Indian children used to come in and out of his
house whenever they liked, and lie on the ground
while he ate his dinner; and every now and then
he threw them raisins and nuts, which they
caught in their little brown hands.

Now, this life was very beautiful; but Cham-
plain was not happy. He wanted this great
country of America to belong to France, and
he wanted to learn all about its rivers and lakes
and forests, so that the other people who would
come later would know the way to go and the
best places to live in. Across great forests he
went, looking at rivers and islands and lakes, till
at last he reached the mighty St. Lawrence River,
where another Frenchman had been a hundred
years before. Here Champlain stayed for several
months, and then he returned to France.

But the next year, which was 1608, Cham-
plain came back again to the St. Lawrence

THE

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F 0 U N

River. He began now to build a little city
called Quebec, which was to be the great city of
the new country; but even before his workmen
were through putting up the first houses, there
was trouble for good Champlain. Among the
men whom he had brought with him from
France, was a very wicked fellow named Duval.
I do not know why Champlain let him come
along, but I suppose that at first he did not know
how wicked Duval really was. You see, many of
the soldiers who first went to America were very
cruel and very wicked. Anyway, this Duval
made a plan with three other men to go to
Champlain's bed while he slept. Then all the
four men were to take Champlain's neck in their
hands and squeeze it till he could not breathe, and
so strangle him to death. It would have gone
hard with Champlain if one of the men had not
told him of this wicked plot. When Champlain
heard it, he arrested the four men. He then had
the wicked Duval hanged, and the other three
men he sent back to France to be punished.

But this was not the last of Champlain's
troubles. A great sickness called scurvy broke
out among the men who were with him. Of
the twenty-eight men, twenty died, and only eight

13?

Champlain came back to the St. Lawrence River and began to build a little

city called Quebec."

THE

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N E W

FRANCE

were left to bury the dead. Even these eight men
were sick, and every day they came to Champlain
and begged him to take them back to France.
" Do you not remember," they said; "do you not
remember how warm and sunny and beautiful it
is at home; how the blue grapes hang in heavy
bunches on the green vines; how the lovely
women smile with joy, and the little children
play about our knees and beg us for stories?
Let us go back to our beautiful France and to
our wives and children." But Champlain told
them to be brave and patient; so they waited,
and in the spring their courage was rewarded.
More ships came with brave Frenchmen, and
these ships were loaded down with food; so all
the men with Champlain were again happy.

Champlain had learned that it was best to be
kind to the Indians, and so it happened that all
the Indians near Quebec were his friends. Now,
one day Champlain heard of a great lake to the
south, and he wanted to go there to find out all
about it. So he asked the friendly Indians to
take him; but they shook their heads. "We
cannot go there in peace," they said, "because
of the Five Nations." "Who are these Five
Nations?" asked Champlain. Then the friendly

WiiVrir

mmUBiimiim

133

THE

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Indians answered him quickly: "They are our
enemies, these Five Nations. They are Indian
tribes who kill us when they can, and whom we
kill when we can. ' We are always at war. " But,"
they told Champlain, "though we cannot go to
the great lake in peace, we are going there in
war. We are going to fight the Five Nations.
Come with us, you and your men and your guns,
and fight with us against these peoples."

So Champlain and two of his men went with
the friendly Indians to fight the Five Nations.
There were sixty Indians in all, and they trav-
eled in light canoes, going down the rivers that
emptied into the Great Lake. The Indians in
front always held their bows in their hands, ready
to shoot if they should see any of the warriors
of the Five Nations, and those in the back canoes
were always looking around for animals, so that
they could shoot them and cook them, so that the
little army would have enough food. Every night
they sent a few canoes ahead to watch out for
the enemy.

At last, one evening, as Champlain and his men
were canoeing down the lake, they met the Indians
of the Five Nations. There were two hundred
Indians in this army; but the sixty friendly

mmiiittt

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134

THE FATHER OF NEW FRANCE

2S5S

Indians were not afraid, because they had Cham-
plain with them. "When the Five Nations seethe
guns of the Frenchmen," said the chiefs among
themselves, "and hear them speak noise and fire
and death, they will be so afraid that they will
run away and we will win the battle."

It was too late to fight that night, so both
little armies waited until the sun rose on the lake
the next morning. During all the long hours
they stayed near each other, and in the darkness
they each called the others cowards. They made
a great noise, I can tell you.

Well, the fight began the next morning, and
then the army of the Five Nations had a great
surprise. The first thing they saw was a white
man in gleaming armor, who held a gun in his
hands, and had a gleaming sword in his belt.
The Indians shot their arrows at this white man,
but the arrows did not do any more harm than
if they had been shot at a rock. Then Cham-
plain aimed his gun and shot bullets, and two
of the chiefs of the Five Nations fell down dead.
Two other Frenchmen shot bullets and more
chiefs fell dead. Now, the Five Nations had
never seen men killed in this way before. They
could not see the bullets that went so fast through

THE

M E N

W H O

FOUND

the air, and they thought that the white men had
killed their chiefs with a noise; so the army of
the Five Nations grew very much afraid. One
of the Indians began to run, then another, then
another, and soon their whole army was running
away. The Indians who were with Champlain
ran after them, shooting them with their arrows,
killing and catching very many. I think that
both sides were very cruel, and it seems to me
sometimes that Champlain, though he was a brave
man and a very wise man, would have done bet-
ter if he had kept out of all their quarrels; for,
from that day, the Five Nations were always the
enemies of the French, and would never let the
French go to the south, where they wanted to go.
After this, came busy years for the brave
Samuel Champlain. He had found his new
country for France, and every year he traveled
over it and learned more about it. He traded
with the Indians for their beautiful furs and
sent them to France, where the fine ladies of the
Court wore them in the winter. Champlain sent
a young Frenchman to study the Indian lan-
guages, so that Champlain could talk to them
in their own way, and he sent an Indian to
France to learn to speak French.

iimiuuK

136

THE

FATHER OF NEW

FRANCE

But Champlain was too brave to stay always
in Quebec, and so every now and then he would
go on a great trip. Once he went north to find
a great salt sea that a Frenchman had told him
about. It was one of the hardest and most dan-
gerous trips that a man ever took. There were
great swamps, where Champlain sank to his
waist; and deep forests, where the bushes and
brushwood were so thick and dense that he had
to cut his way with a great knife before taking
a step. And all these hardships were useless,
for there really wasn't any great salt sea; so, of
course, they never found it.

Then Champlain went on a second long
journey to the west. He traveled with the
friendly Indians for many weeks, till at last they
came upon the town of the Five Nations. You
would have been surprised to see that town. It
was not like other cities, with streets, and stores,
and brick houses, and electric cars. It was just
a few plain, long, one-story houses, as big as
theatres. In these houses were a lot of little
rooms, and in each room a family of Indians.
Around the town were four rows of stakes, like
telegraph poles, and the Indians stood behind
these poles when they shot their arrows.

j!L>

. ■ --,

THE

M E N

WHO FOUND AMERICA

This time the Indians who were with Cham-
plain were beaten in the fight, because they would
not do as the Frenchman told them. Even Cham-
plain himself was shot twice in the leg, and the
Indians had to carry him away in a basket that
they fastened to their backs. You see, they were
friends of Champlain, and they did not want
him to be caught and killed by the Indians of
the Five Nations.

That was a hard winter for Champlain. The
Indians who were friendly to him wanted him to
stay with them, and when he asked for a guide
to show him the way back to his home in Quebec,
they would not let him go. You see, Champlain
did not know this country as well as the Indians
did, and he was afraid of getting lost in the forest;
but the Indians treated him well, and when the
spring came around again they took him home
to his city of Quebec.

After this, Champlain worked day and night
to build up his new country. He tried very
hard to make it pleasant for the people who lived
in Quebec, and always tried to get more French-
men to come from France and live in the new
country. Every year he took the long journey
across the ocean and told everybody there of the

UliflHI*

THE FATHER OF NEW FRANCE

wonderful land of America. Of all the things
in the world, what Champlain most wanted was
to make this new France even greater and more
beautiful than the old France.

I think that if Champlain had not been a very
patient man, he would have many a time given up
Quebec and gone back to France to lead a peace-
ful, quiet life. Oftert things went very bad indeed.
New people did not cross the ocean as fast as
Champlain wanted them to, and those who did
come grumbled and quarreled. Often, too, the
food gave out and the people got sick and many
starved. But Champlain, though he was now a
pretty old man, would never give up. Once
some English warships sailed into the harbor
and asked Champlain to give up the city to them.
The brave Frenchman had hardly any soldiers;
but he said, "No; I will never give up my city
of New France. As long as I have a man or a
bullet left, I will never give up the city of
Quebec." And after a while, the English cap-
tain became frightened because he thought
that Champlain might have a big army, and so
he sailed away; but the next year three more
English vessels sailed up the harbor, and as this
time Champlain had only sixteen half-starved

THE

M E N

WHO FOUND AM ERIC

men, he had to surrender. But England did not
long keep the city. It was handed back to
France, and Champlain was again sent out to
Quebec as commander over the little town.

So Samuel Champlain, the boy who had
dreamed of New France, now went back once
more to that country; but his days were almost
over. He became very ill, and, after lying in
bed for more than two months, he died an old
man, at the age of sixty-eight years.

Many, many years later, there was a great war
between France and England, and after the war
was over the whole country of New France was
given to England. The English changed the
name of the country to Canada; but even now
there are more than a million people living there
who speak French, and who are the children of
the children of the children for many genera-
tions, of the men who lived with Champlain.
And even now, after three hundred years, these
Frenchmen, and other people in Canada, and
people all over the world for that matter, revere
the name of the great and good Champlain, and
call him, as they used to call him so long ago,
"The Father of New France."

140

THE

FRIENDS

i&sr

I N D I A N

THE FRIENDS of the INDIANS

MANY, many years ago, two Frenchmen,
traveling through a new, wild forest coun-
try, came upon a cross that was all covered with
flowers. There were no white men in all this
country, and so the Frenchmen wondered who
had put the cross there, and who had placed the
flowers on it; but later they learned that the
Indians in this part of the country had laid the
flowers on the cross. Then the Frenchmen knew
that these Indians were friends, because every-
where the French went they carried the cross,
and taught the Indians, who loved them, to place
flowers on it.

Now, these two Frenchmen were very good
men. They treated the Indians kindly, and the
Indians, who liked to be treated kindly, were also
good to the Frenchmen. There is a very good
lesson in all this. If you want people to be good
to you, then you must always be kind to them.

Now, all the Frenchmen who came to America
knew this, and from the first they were kind to
the Indians. The Spaniards had been very harsh.
They had killed the red men or made slaves of

<«*—

141

THE MEN WHO FOUND AMERICA

'••■'.. '•■'

iJJk

mum

them, and sometimes the Indians had been cruelly
beaten until they died. They had been tortured,
too; hung up by their fingers and toes; roasted
over a hot fire; starved, and even chased with
great, fierce blood-hounds. So I am not sur-
prised that the Indians did not love the Spaniards.

Now, the English and Dutch who came to
America were not quite so cruel as the Spaniards,
but sometimes they, too, treated the Indians
harshly. For a very little wrong they would
shoot an Indian or burn down a whole Indian
village. Besides, they were very proud, and
thought that the red men were only savages, and
they did not want to have anything to do with
them; and this, I may tell you, is a very bad
way to act and think, if you want people to like
you and help you.

The Frenchmen who came to America acted
much more wisely. They really loved the
Indians, and often lived with them in their poor
little villages. Some of the Frenchmen had been
great lords in their own country. They had had
beautiful castles, with fine, big rooms, and gold
and silver and wonderful carpets. They had had
many servants to wait on them, and everything
in the world that they wanted. Yet these very

mifomit

142

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FRIENDS

O F

THE INDIANS

men were not too proud to sleep on the ground
in the hut of an Indian, or share with him a
meal of corn and dried meat. They hunted with
the Indians; they fished with them, they smoked
their pipes with them, and Indians and French-
men sat around the roaring camp-fire and talked
together, or looked up in silence at the bright
little stars. Wherever the Frenchmen went, they
put up little chapels, and here Frenchmen and
Indians kneeled down side by side and prayed
to the good God. The French priest would bap-
tize the little red children, and when they grew
old enough to understand, he would teach them
about God and the Bible.

Some of the Indians became Christians, and
hung flowers on the little crosses which the
Frenchmen built all over the country. And so
it was that when our two Frenchmen saw the
flowers on the cross, they rejoiced and were glad,
because they knew that even in this wild coun-
try, far away from all white men, they were with
friends.

Now, these men were not only very good, but
they were also very brave. One of them was
named Louis Joliet. He had been sent by the
King of France to find out some good way to

143

THE

MEN

WHO FOUND AMERICA

f&*g£

-AdMAMfa***

the Pacific Ocean. The other was Father Mar-
quette, a French priest, as brave a man as any
soldier. This Father Marquette had lived with
the Indians many, many years. He knew their
languages and all their customs, and the Indians
loved him and called him their friend.

Well, it was not an easy thing that these brave
Frenchmen were trying to do. No white man
had ever been in all this country before. It was
much pleasanter staying in Quebec, the city
which good Champlain, the Father of New
France, had founded; but Joliet and good
Father Marquette were not afraid of danger.
They sailed down the St. Lawrence River into
the Great Lakes, and then on and on and on,
day after day, and day after day, until at last they
reached Lake Michigan. I think this part of
their journey must have been the most pleasant.
The weather was warm, the Indians they met
were friendly, and now and then they would
come across some Frenchman who was living
out in the wild country, trapping animals for
their furs or trading with the Indians; and
sometimes they would meet a good French priest,
who had come this great way to teach the Indians
about God.

'•SV

"The Indians loved the brave Father Marquette, and called him their friend."

THE FRIENDS

O F

THE

INDIANS

Well, at last they left the last Frenchman and
the last wooden cross, and started down a narrow
but beautiful river that they believed flowed into
the Mississippi. The little river was so choked
with rice that grew wild along its banks that the
boats found it hard to move. Here their guides
left them, and then for a week they drifted slowly,
slowly down the river, till at last, with cries of
joy, they came to the Mississippi.

Now, this Mississippi River is the greatest
river in America, and one of the greatest rivers
in all the world. It was the same river that De
Soto had found so many, many years before,
when the Indians had told him that its name was
the Father of Waters. Now, you see, whatever
country owned the Mississippi River, the great
river that flowed from little streams all the
way down to where it emptied into the great,
great sea, that country would own all the land
along its banks, and so would be the greatest
country in America. This was why Joliet and
Father Marquette wanted to sail all the way down
the river, so that all the land on its banks might
belong to France. Besides, they thought that
perhaps it flowed into the Pacific Ocean. You
see, Joliet and Father Marquette had no good

THE

MEN

WHO FOUND AMERICA

maps, and they did not know, as you and I know,
that the Mississippi River flowed not west into
the Pacific Ocean, but south into the Gulf of
Mexico.

When the two brave Frenchmen reached the
Mississippi River, they were a little afraid of the
Indians who lived along its banks. Perhaps
these Indians would be their enemies and would
kill them; so they no longer left their canoes
at night and slept on the banks about a roaring
camp-fire. They feared that the sharp eyes of
unfriendly Indians might see the smoke, and that
they might come and cut off their scalps while
they slept ; so they tied their canoes to the shore
and they rolled themselves up in blankets, so as
to be ready to wake in a minute and paddle away.
They also made one of their men stay awake all
night to watch for the red men; but for eight
days there was not an Indian in sight.

On the ninth day they saw a path leading up
from the river, and they knew that this path must
go to an Indian village. Joliet and Father Mar-
quette did not know whether these Indians were
friendly or not ; but they were both brave men.
Maybe their hearts beat a little faster, as they
thought that, perhaps, the Indians would kill

'.*>

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146

THE FRIENDS

O F

THE

INDIANS

em; but, anyway, they did not show any fear
they walked up the path to the village. Well,
after all, the Indians were friendly. The chief
came forward with hands raised above his head,
which was always a sign of friendship with the
Indians. Then other red men waved the long
pipe of peace, which was the same as though
they had said, "Let us be friends, oh, white
men!" The two Frenchmen were invited to take
dinner, and the chief told them stories about the
Great River and about the other Indians that
lived along its banks. And at last, when Joliet
and Father Marquette said good-by, all the
Indians went with them as far as the river, and
the Indian chief gave them a present, which
was better than gold, or silver, or diamonds, or
rubies.

Now, I suppose you will want to know what
was this present that was better than gold, or
silver, or diamonds, or rubies. Well, I will tell
you; it was a pipe. Not a stale old pipe, such
as a man carries in his pocket, but the calumet,
the pipe of peace. Wherever Joliet and Father
Marquette went, all they had to do was to show
this calumet, or pipe of peace, and every Indian
knew that the great chief was the good friend

iMx

THE

y - :■;

MEN WHO

FOUND

AMERICA

ii iiMi ri— *riJ—f'

of these white men; and many times this pipe
saved the lives of the two brave Frenchmen.

Well, wherever they went, Joliet and Father
Marquette showed the calumet of the great
Indian chief, and then the other Indians were
friendly too. And these two Frenchmen were so
good and brave that the Indians liked them for
their own sakes; so down the river they sailed,
past big forests and beautiful, rolling prairies,
until one day they saw a wide, yellow river that
flowed into the Mississippi. This was the Mis-
souri, a great, yellow, roaring river, and if they
had time, I think the two Frenchmen would have
sailed up it; but they could not stop. So day
after day they sailed on down, down, down the
Mississippi. I think that they must have had a
good time of it, seeing a new country all the
while; but they did not go the whole way.
When they had gone many hundreds of miles,
they were told stories of some very cruel Indians
who lived in the south. The friendly Indians
said to them, "If you fall into the hands of these
bad Indians, they will surely tie you to a pole
and burn you alive; and if you escape, perhaps
the Spaniards will catch you, and they are as
wicked as the others."

"■-S3
m '

THE

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THE

INDIANS

sfis»"

So Joliet and Father Marquette talked it over
for a long time, and at last they thought it would
be wiser to go back. Slowly they sailed up the
Mississippi River, and then across the country to
the Great Lakes, and back the same way they had
come. On the way home they saw graceful,
white swans, with long, beautiful necks, swim-
ming on the little silver lakes, and in the dark,
green forests were cattle, and goats, and beautiful
brown deer, with wonderful spreading horns.
At last they reached Quebec, and all the people
in the town wanted to hear of the great adven-
tures and lucky escapes of Joliet and Father
Marquette.

Now, there was a brave man named La Salle,
who heard these stories from the mouth of Joliet.
This La Salle was a very great man in France.
His family were nobles and were very rich, and
young La Salle, whose first name was Robert,
had been well brought up, and had been taught
many things. He was so good that he even
became a priest, and everybody said that Robert
La Salle was a very good and a very wise man.

But Robert La Salle wanted to go to America,
not only to find new lands, but also to find what
so many others had tried to find, a new way to

THE

M E N

W H O

F O U N D

AMERICA

, ■

the Pacific Ocean. So he gave up being a priest
and went to the great, new country of America.

La Salle was not only a wise man, but one
who thought a great deal, and now he thought
of a new plan. This plan was to build little
French forts, very little but very strong, all the
way along the Great Lakes and the Mississippi
River; and at the mouth of the Mississippi he
planned a great, great fort. He wanted to put
French soldiers in these forts, so that the whole
river and all the country around would belong
to France. When this was done, Frenchmen
could go everywhere to get furs, and soon little
cities could be built, and there would be a great,
strong, New France in America. So the dream
of Champlain would come true.

Now, the first thing La Salle had to do was
to sail down the great Mississippi and find the
best places for his little forts and trading posts;
and this was not an easy thing to do. In those
days it was a long and hard journey from Quebec
to the mouth of the Great River, and La Salle
tried many times before he succeeded. On the
first trip his ship was wrecked in a great storm
and nearly everything was lost. Then he had no
food, and had to sail back miles and miles and

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m
SB*. t)).tflMt:Mlii

150

THE FRIENDS OF THE INDIANS

■lis

miles to get bread and meat. Later, his money
gave out, and he had to wait until he had sold
enough furs to buy a new ship. And then, when
his men tried to sail on the lakes, the wind blew
against them, and many times they had to sleep
on the icy ground, with nothing but the sky over
them. Often and often they had no food at all
but a few handfuls of corn.

But the worst trouble that La Salle had was
with his men. They did not want to do much
work, and they were always complaining because
the journey was so hard and because they had
nothing to eat. Now, they knew very well before
they started that it would not be easy, and so I,
for one, think that they ought not to have com-
plained; but so it is with people. Some, like
La Salle's men, will grumble and grumble over
every little thing, while others will bear all sorts
of hardship and never say a word.

Now, there were with La Salle two men who
never complained. One was his faithful French
friend, Tonti, and another faithful friend was an
Indian. These two men, one a Frenchman and
one an Indian, loved La Salle and did whatever
he asked. The Indian knew the forest. He
could find his way through the great, thick trees

MEN WHO FOUND AMERICA

even in the dark; so La Salle took him as his
guide. When everybody else was tired and
cross, this good Indian was as brave and as
patient as ever. This was because he loved La
Salle, and because La Salle was always kind to
all Indians.

Well, all the time the troubles of La Salle
grew worse and worse. Sometimes the little
streams were filled with ice, so that the canoes
had to be moved on sledges, and sometimes
these brave men had to wade for miles in water
up to their waists. Of course, the brambles and
thorns tore their clothing to rags, and when it
grew cold, their clothes froze as hard as ice.
Then they had to stop and build a fire before
they could go any further.

I am sure these were times when even the
brave heart of La Salle almost broke, but not
once did he give up. Again and again he tried,
day after day, till at last, after years of disap-
pointment, La Salle reached the mouth of the
Mississippi River. His patience and persever-
ance were finally rewarded. It was in February,
over two hundred years ago, that the Father of
Waters and all the country nearby was given by
La Salle to the King of France.

pirt.'JW

152

'■•■Vi

THE

FRIENDS

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THE

INDIAN

k0&

You can imagine the joy of La Salle when at
last he reached the end of his long journey. He
put up a cross on the banks of the river. Then
he asked all his men to kneel down and pray.
Then it was that he named the new country
Louisiana, in honor of King Louis, and, in a
loud voice, called out that from that time on all
the land should belong to France.

And for many years the great country of the
Mississippi did belong to France. But later,
much later, when the grandchildren of the men
who had been with La Salle were all dead, a new
country grew up in America — our country, the
United States. And to us the French sold all
this great country of the Mississippi. Yet the
name of Louisiana is still the name of one of
our States, and even to-day all Americans think
of La Salle as a great and good man who did
well for his country.

For all his good deeds La Salle was not
rewarded as he should have been. Two years
after he had found the mouth of the Mississippi
River, he came back again with four ships and
two hundred and eighty men. This time he
wanted to build the city and fort that he had
planned so many years before; but the captain

153

THE MEN WHO FOUND AMERICA

of these vessels was a very stupid and a very
jealous man. He took La Salle to the wrong
place instead of to the mouth of the Mississippi,
and when La Salle wanted him to sail again and
try once more to find the mouth of the river,
this evil man would not do so; so La Salle
started by land. Now he had no map, and it
was much further than he thought. Then, too,
there were many hardships, and his men grumbled
and grumbled, and would not do as he said.
And at last two of the men, who were very
wicked, hid behind trees, and when La Salle was
walking to the camp, they shot him dead.

And that was the end of Robert La Salle, the
man who found the mouth of the Mississippi,
and who was one of the true, good and great
friends of the Indians.

W HAT

CAME

O F

I T

*5*

WHAT CAME OF IT ALL

AND now ray stories are ended. What won-
. derful stories they are! How strange and
how true!

As I finished my last story, I closed my eyes,
and it seemed to me that I saw again all those
brave men who had come from the East to explore
our America. I saw them all — noble and swine-
herd, priest and soldier, Spaniard and French-
man, and Englishman and Dutchman. I saw
the wise Columbus following the Queen from
place to place, begging her to let him sail to the
Indies. And again I saw him, after he had
found America, when he was an old man, poor,
sick and forgotten. And so, too, I saw the
others — the wicked Balboa, the brave Henry
Hudson, the good Father Marquette, who loved
the Indians and was loved by them.

How strangely it all happened! These bold
men searched for one thing and found another.
Columbus looked for the Indies and found
America; De Soto hunted for gold and came
to the Mississippi River, and Ponce de Leon
wanted a fountain of youth, so that he might

f*R?

4mmks

L L

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155

THE

M E N

W H O

drink the waters and never die, and instead of
youth and life he found Florida and death. And
so it was with the others. The unfortunate
Henry Hudson never thought of the great city
of New York, which was to grow up on his
river; he only thought of a short cut to the
Pacific Ocean. And the wicked Balboa, who
hid in a barrel, did not think that he would be
the first man to look upon the great ocean; but
all he wanted was to get away from the men who
had lent him money. So strangely did it all
happen!

Yes, they were strange men and they led
strange lives. Up and down they went, some-
times rich, sometimes poor, but always bold and
daring. A man who had nothing in all the
world would stumble upon a great empire and
become rich and famous in the eyes of all men.
Think of Cortez, who came out of prison to
conquer all of Mexico, and who became so rich
that he did not know what to do with his money,
though at last he died poor and unhappy! And
think of Pizarro, the barefooted, bareheaded
swineherd, who became one of the greatest and
richest and wickedest men in all the world!
How strange Cortez must have seemed to the

illll'Jll.K

156

«'i*

Aztecs, who had never before seen a white man,
nor a horse, nor a gun, nor a house that sailed
on the sea! And how strange the greedy Pizarro
must have looked to the Incas, and how strange
and curious the Incas and their wonderful coun-
try must have seemed to Pizarro!

Just so strange and wonderful were the things
that happened to the other explorers. There was
the nobleman, De Vaca, who became a slave to
the wild Indians. Then there was bold Captain
Smith, whose life was saved by the Little Red
Princess of the Forest; and stranger still, this
same little girl, who had saved his life in Vir-
ginia, saw him again in London, and this time
she was a Christian and an Englishman's wife,
and the friend of the King and Queen of all
England. It was all very, very strange.

I wish that I could really see all these great
men — the wise Columbus, who sailed new seas
and found America; the patient Champlain, the
good Father of New France; the bold La Salle,
who sailed down the Mississippi River; the faith-
ful Henry Hudson, the brave De Soto, and all
the others. Yes, I should like to meet them, to
shake their hands, to hear from their own lips
their wonderful stories; but this cannot be.

£fe

■■

THE MEN WHO FOUND AMERIC

All of these things happened hundreds of years
ago, long before I was born, and all the men
and all the women, all the Kings, and Queens,
and nobles, and sailors, and soldiers, and priests,
and Indian chiefs — all are dead.

And now you will ask me what came of it
all. Well, that is another story, or rather, I
should say, many stories. Many brave men
came to America, and many brave men lived
here, and strange and wonderful things hap-
pened; but the end of it all was that a new
country arose in America — the United States, and
you and I and all other Americans have this good
land for our country.

And so we Americans, who live in the coun-
try that Columbus found, and the others explored
and conquered, should always remember those
brave men who risked their lives so many, many
years ago; and for this reason we, who love
America, should be grateful to them all, but
especially to the one who first pointed out the
way — to the bold sailor who crossed an unknown
sea, the good, wise Christopher Columbus, the
man who found America.

[ THE END.]

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